Elizabeth Hustead
After graduating with a master’s degree in agronomy from the University of Florida, Elizabeth Hustead came to Ohio State where she graduated this past May with her second master’s degree, this time in agricultural communication. Having spent the past two years in the Department of Agricultural Education, Communication, and Leadership (ACEL), Elizabeth is now out in the real world where she has begun her career in the position of social marketing coordinator in Ohio SNAP-Ed.
Elizabeth’s research at Ohio State was the flagship project of an innovative partnership between ACEL and the Center for Applied Plant Sciences (CAPS). She worked with CAPS’s scientific research teams to pilot a cutting-edge communications platform aimed at facilitating collaborative research within and across geographically dispersed teams.
In her current position as a social marketing coordinator, Elizabeth works with SNAP-Ed offices throughout the state to launch a social marketing campaign promoting fruit and vegetable consumption among SNAP recipients with children.
SNAP-Ed is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). It’s goal is to: “improve the likelihood that persons eligible for SNAP will make healthy choices within a limited budget and choose active lifestyles consistent with the current dietary guidelines for Americans and MyPlate.”
Elizabeth says that her ACEL degree and the connections she made during her time as a graduate research student were instrumental in discovering her passion for food security issues and securing her position in social marketing, which she loves.
To learn more about graduate opportunities within ACEL, contact Mary Kivel by emailing kivel.1@osu.edu