As the Calvin Noyes Keeney Assistant Professor of Plant Breeding, Mazourek spends some days planting crops for trials at the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station’s research farms, others collaborating with chef Dan Barber on unusual breeds like the honeynut squash, and still others designing organic varieties to benefit New York state growers. …
A native of Newfield, N.Y., Mazourek was inspired to better connect farmers with research when he came to Cornell as an assistant professor in 2009. “There were all of these cultivars developed at Cornell that had solutions to problems I had in my home garden for decades,” he said. “I grew up one town over so I couldn’t imagine why I had suffered for so long with powdery mildew when these folks had the cure.”