The Center received 118 applications and awarded Chiamaka the 2014 Postharvest Technology Short Course scholarship this year as she impressed the reviewing panel with her future plans and showed how much she, and her associates, would benefit from the opportunity.
The scholarship, funded primarily by a trust created by Leonard and Marseille Morris, aims to provide an individual from a developing country the opportunity to learn about managing the postharvest handling of horticultural crops with an intent to take that information back to their home country and utilize it to benefit others in their region.
Chiamaka spent her first week, along with 97 other attendees, listening to lectures on topics as varied as quality factors, maturation, harvest systems, ripening methods, food safety, disease management as well as some commodity-specific talks. The group also participated in laboratory demonstrations of cooling methods, ethylene measurements, sensory evaluation and more. She was impressed with the variety of and clarity of the presentations.
At the end of the first week, Chiamaka conveyed her appreciation. “I thank UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center for this rare opportunity and I promise I will achieve the objective of the scholarship opportunity.”
The second week of the course took Chiamaka and her colleagues on a field tour to witness first-hand how the principles learned the first week are put into action. Throughout the tour of the central valley and central coast of California, the group saw field operations, packinghouses, distribution centers, cold rooms, transportation facilities and more.
Before she left, Chiamaka expressed, “This program has added value to my life and of course the lives of people I will be in contact with, because I will definitely hand the knowledge down.” That's exactly what we like to hear.