Provided

Newfield senior Cynthia Ulbing, shown here working at the Guterman Bioclimatic Lab, has been awarded an all-expenses paid internship through her participation in the New York Youth Institute at Cornell.

Cynthia Ulbing, 17, of Newfield, N.Y., is one of 22 students nationwide to earn a Borlaug-Ruan International Internship from the World Food Prize Foundation. The senior at Newfield High School will work this summer at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing.

“By engaging these young people in actual hunger-fighting research, we hope they will be inspired to pursue academic and career paths in science, food, agricultural and natural resource disciplines, and thus be prepared to become tomorrow’s innovative scientific and humanitarian leaders,” said Francine Jasper, assistant director of professional development in International Programs at Cornell who coordinates the New York Youth Institute for the World Food Prize Foundation.

Ulbing is currently earning college credit by working at Cornell’s Guterman Bioclimatic Laboratories through TST BOCES and the New Visions Life Sciences program.

The Borlaug-Ruan internship provides an all expenses-paid, eight-week experience for student interns to participate in projects with distinguished researchers at leading agricultural research centers around the globe. While getting a first-hand view of real and pressing food security issues and nutrition problems in poverty-stricken areas, the students spend time in labs and fields conducting research and interviews, and gathering data.

Ulbing won the internship by entering a four-page essay on hunger in North Korea that first allowed her to attend the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa, in October 2012, with her high school mentor, Patrick Brennan.

More than 100 high school students from all over the United States and other countries are selected each year to participate in the three-day Global Youth Institute hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation. Participants interact with Nobel laureates and World Food Prize winners and discuss pressing food security and agricultural issues with international experts.

The deadline for application to this year’s New York Youth Institute is Sept. 9.

Maina Dhital is a Humbert Humphrey fellow who is serving her professional affiliation with International Programs.