Kansas State professor makes healthy food more accessible
OLATHE, Kan. — This Kansas State professor is working to feed the world.
Eleni Pliakoni teaches and researches urban food production and post-harvest handling at K-State’s Olathe campus.
But she’s not just studying better ways to grow crops. She’s also raising the next generation of crop scientists with the mission to make healthy food more accessible to people worldwide.
For Pliakoni, green thumbs run in her family.
“My grandpa was a horticulturalist. My mom was a horticulturalist before she retired,” she said. “I am the third generation, the only one who ended up going to higher education.”
Her love of growing things began when she was a small child in her home country of Greece. She learned while tending the garden alongside her family.
“I grew up surrounded by the love for plants and growing,” Pliakoni said. “And grandpa had this yard, and our summers would be with grandma, eating whatever was in the garden.”
In her college studies, Pliakoni got interested in how important fruit and vegetable crops are for human health — and the challenges that come with that.
Now at K-State’s Olathe campus, she teaches graduate