SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Heidi Mencl, of Hershey, Pennsylvania, received the $1,500 Pennsylvania Dairy Innovation Scholarship provided to the Penn State University Department of Food Science from Pennsylvania Dairy Promotion Program.
Mencl is a senior studying food science in the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, with graduation set for May 2024. She is working toward the completion of her Penn State Schreyer Honors thesis that focuses on research for developing a safe, sustainable food packaging that inhibits bacterial growth to improve food safety in all food products. She is conducting undergraduate research in the food microbiology laboratory on campus around this topic.
Mencl’s dairy interests were sparked when working on her family’s dairy farm in the Czech Republic, where she learned how to make yogurts and cheeses. She also completed a research and development internship with Hood this summer, where she worked on the ice cream team and developed her own ice cream flavor, a mango sticky rice ice cream.
Students are also encouraged to apply for the Pennsylvania Dairy Promotion Program Dairy Product Marketing Scholarship by Dec. 1. One $3,000 scholarship is available to a full-time undergraduate student entering their sophomore to senior year as of Fall 2023. Applicants must be enrolled in a college or university in Pennsylvania or a resident of Pennsylvania with an interest in dairy marketing. The online application can be found by visiting AmericanDairy.com.
