Josie Rudolphi’s passion for agriculture has taken her around the world, and her passion for its people landed her at the University of Iowa in ag safety and health. Rudolphi, a Ph.D. student in the College of Public Health’s Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, is originally from rural Williamsburg, where her parents grow corn and soybeans on the family farm.

“I grew up 40 miles from here,” she said of her home’s close proximity to Iowa City, while trips to places such as Panama, Denmark, South Africa, Australia and India have provided her with a global perspective, as well.

READ more about Josie Rudolphi’s current trip to do research on a tea plantation in India…

Through her travels, Rudolphi has come to see that producers everywhere “face the same challenges that we do,” she said. For example, a trip to Denmark revealed that a ban on farrowing crates led to the unintended consequence of small-scale farmers selling their farms to corporations, due to the high cost of retrofitting hog confinement buildings. That type of information has relevance close to home, as some states ponder similar bans, she said.

Her sub-track in Agricultural Safety and Health was a natural fit for Rudolphi, who earned both her Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Communications and Master of Science in Agricultural Teacher Education from Iowa State University.

Like many rural Iowans, she was active in 4-H and FFA as a youth and showed livestock at the county fair. As an adult, she interned with Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, an international nonprofit based in Urbandale, Iowa, and taught at Davis County High School in southern Iowa, where she was also the FFA advisor. Both roles continued her interest in ag safety and sparked her desire to learn more and share that knowledge, though she notes that her concern didn’t stem from any particular incident.

Fortunately, close family members have not been involved in any farming incidents, though she knows friends and neighbors who have, Rudolphi said, and news of grain bin accidents and tractor rollovers are not uncommon in Iowa. As she researched her prospects, she found that the UI offers one of the only programs in the country dedicated to ag safety and health.

Rudolphi immediately received a response to an email to the department and is now in her second year of the Ph.D. program. Classes provide the skills students need to be successful, she said, while faculty provide “all the guidance you need to be productive in your research.”

Her goal is to translate the science that comes from research institutes such as the UI, package it and deliver it to the farmers who can use the information, whether that’s in Iowa or internationally.

“It’s exciting to be in a place where there are a lot of people committed to ag safety and health,” Rudolphi said. “You have all of the resources you need right here.”

— Story by Cindy Hadish