FFAR Fellows Program

**Program Overview** The FFAR Fellows Program offers leadership and professional development training to PhD students studying food and agriculture-related sciences in the U.S. and Canada. North Carolina State University leads the initiative, which provides Fellows with training, networking opportunities, and peer support. Over the 3-year period members of each cohort of 30 fellows attend four in-person meetings plus monthly virtual sessions, create and execute annual professional development plans, and network and establish mentor-mentee relationships with industry scientists and others outside of academia. The Fellows Program kicks-off with a one-week orientation session in August at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and a second session at NCSU the following April. These Year 1 sessions and monthly webinars focus on self-assessment, emotional self-management, creating networks of support (peer, mentor, professional), presenting scientific information in a clear and compelling manner, improving interpersonal communication and teamwork skills, time management and prioritization, and exploring a variety of career paths. The residential sessions include site visits at agriculture industry locations in Research Triangle Park and meetings with industry scientists and extension leaders including alumni FFAR Fellows. In Year 2 of the program Fellows have a spring meeting in Washington, DC. This meeting and webinars in Year 2 focus on communicating with policy-makers, understanding the policy process, and exploring careers in the public sector and NGOs. In Year 2 fellows also train to become better mentors and supervisors and effectively lead through influence. They also complete a 360 assessment process whereby they receive largely anonymous feedback from their advisor, mentors, peers, and those they supervise. Fellows final, Year 3, session is held in St. Louis and includes tours and networking at Bayer Crop Science, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Purina Animal Nutrition Center, and a host of early stage and start-up agtech companies which form the St. Louis agtech ecosystem. In Year 3 fellows receive training to create and manage effective meetings, develop intercultural competence, and execute a successful job search campaign; and learn core business topics and an understanding of business needs and the product life cycle. If they have not done so already, Fellows participate in training to create a 3-minute Lightning Talk and submit a research-focused blog post. Each year fellows complete a Professional Development Plan (PDP) and have interactions with their mentors (their advisor, and industry mentor, and an additional mentor depending on interests) to identify and achieve their PDP goals.