David Potts, a FREC fourth year PhD student, has taken second place in the IFT Education, Extension & Outreach Division Graduate Student Technical Writing Competition. He will be traveling to this year's IFT meeting in July to accept his award.
The Institute of Food Technologists holds this competition because one of the core competencies in the IFT Education standards is for students to achieve competency in communication skills (i.e., oral and written communication, listening, interviewing, etc.). According to the IFT guidelines, by the time students graduate, they should not only be able to search for and condense information, but also be able to "communicate technical information to a non-technical audience."