Grant Helps to Plant Family at OSU Attending the same university as relatives is not uncommon.  But if your university is on another continent, it becomes a little more out of the ordinary.  However, for Sophia Kamenidou, who hails from Greece, attending OSU is becoming a family tradition. “Four years ago I attended OSU through the HORTECUS exchange program,” Sophia says.  “I liked it very much, so I extended my visa for one year, then I applied for graduate school and now I’m working on my Ph.D.”  “My husband (a food sciences doctoral candidate also from Greece) and I love OSU so much we recommended my brother come. Now he’s a master’s student in the Design, Housing and Merchandising Department.  Half my family is here.” But the plant sciences doctoral candidate says remaining at OSU was not just dependent on her desire to stay.

Sophia Kamenidou American Floral Endowment Scientific Research Grant

“Financial assistance is one of the reasons it was easy to stay here and continue the Ph.D. program,” she says.  “Without it, staying here and pursuing my doctorate would basically be impossible.”

Kamenidou is researching various forms and applications of soluble silicon for the control of fungal diseases in the floriculture industry.  Her findings could save the floriculture industry billions of dollars annually lost to plant disease.

“My research is really unique because it combines both floriculture and plant pathology, so I’m really benefiting by getting two different areas of knowledge at the same time,” Kamenidou says.   

The American Floral Endowment (AFE), the leading non-profit, non-governmental floricultural/environmental horticulture research funding source in the United States, agrees that Kamenidou’s research is important.  To ensure industry benefits, the AFE awarded Kamenidou, along with OSU professor Stephen Marek and adjunct professor Todd Cavins, a research grant for $18,000 a year for three consecutive years.

“I am really grateful for their support,” Kamenidou says.  “There’s no way I could be an international student conducting this research without it, or without the support of the excellent donors to the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture.”

When Kamenidou graduates next spring she hopes to teach floriculture either in the U.S. or back home in Greece and be an advocate for education.

“Inspiring faculty were a big motivation for me to finish my master’s and continue my doctorate.  As a professor, I will try to help other students as much as I can by encouraging them to be involved in exchange programs and applying for every single scholarship opportunity they can,” she says. 

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