Two Doctoral Candidates Earn Fellowships Abroad

Two Texas Tech University doctoral students in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources have earned the opportunity to do food safety research in France.

Hattie Webb from Amarillo and Josh Ison from Batavia, Ohio, earned the Chateaubriand Fellowship and will head in January to Maisons-Alfort (near Paris) to work on research projects in a collaborative effort between Texas Tech and the French Food Safety Agency. Webb will spend nine months in France while Ison will be there for six months.

“It is a tremendous honor to be selected to receive the Chateaubriand Fellowship,” Ison said. “I am very excited for the opportunity to study at (the French Food Safety Agency) and spend some time in Paris.”

The Chateaubriand Fellowship is a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) grant offered by the Office for Science and Technology and the embassy of France to the United States. Its goal is to “initiate or reinforce collaborations, partnerships or joint projects by encouraging exchange at the doctoral level,” according to the fellowship’s website.

All applicants for the fellowship must be doctoral students at a U.S. university. All research during the fellowship must be performed in a French university, engineering school, national laboratory or private enterprise with a link to a doctoral school.

During the fellowships, students receive a monthly allowance of up to 1,400 euros per month with travel and insurance support.

Ison said the focus of his project for the fellowship will be surveillance of antimicrobial resistance within food production systems in an effort to provide an early warning system of salmonella outbreaks or a new variety of salmonella.

“I hope to learn about valuable tools for antibiotic resistance that I can bring back to the U.S. and apply to our food production systems to improve food safety and public health,” Ison said.

Webb’s research will deal with the mechanisms regarding resistance of salmonella to colistin, the antibiotic that has become the last drug available to individuals who have become resistant to almost all other antibiotics.

“This research is critical and will further our understanding of this public health threat,” said Guy Loneragan, a professor in the Texas Tech Animal and Food Sciences department.