bioemergent materials

1 week, 2 honors for innovator Katrina Cornish

CFAES scientist Katrina Cornish had a big week last week, taking home not one but two honors for her sustainability-related research.

Cornish, who is an internationally recognized expert on alternative natural rubber production and on natural rubber biosynthesis, won CFAES’ Innovator of the Year Award on April 22 at the college’s Annual Research Conference; and then, two days later, Ohio State’s Innovator of the Year Award at the university’s new Research and Innovation Showcase.

Visit her lab’s website to learn more about her work.

‘We wish it would grow more like a weed’

CFAES’s John Cardina and Katrina Cornish spoke about their efforts to turn a surprisingly recalcitrant species of dandelion into an American-grown source of rubber in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal (may require subscription).

Learn more about the research, which is developing the TKS dandelion, shown here growing in a CFAES high tunnel, at the Cornish Lab Group’s website. (Photo: CFAES.)

Cornish named Fellow of National Academy of Inventors

Katrina Cornish, Ph.D., FAAAS,

CFAES’s Katrina Cornish, who holds the Endowed Chair in Bio-based Emergent Materials and is an Ohio Research Scholar, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, one of two inductees — along with Vice President for Research Caroline Whitacre — from Ohio State this year. Read the story. In her research, Cornish is developing new and more sustainable sources of natural rubber — specifically Russian dandelion and guayule — for growing in Ohio and use by industry. Watch a 2013 video profile.