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Forestry undergraduate student Hannah Hampton collects a water sample from College Creek as part of Dr. Jan Thompson's research.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Discover your passion

Be greater than you imagine as a Cyclone. Explore CALS majors and other degree options designed to inspire, challenge and prepare you to create a better world.

See yourself in...

Hightail Creamery

Extension

Hightail Delivery credits Annie's Project for flourishing creamery

Karl Kerns and his graduate students

Research

Cell sorter technology at Iowa State ‘opens new doors’ for research

Iowa v. California Class

Learning

Iowa vs. California: Students explore two states' food systems

Megan Decker
“I’m the culmination of all the people who believed in me, inspired me, and poured a little of themselves into me.”
Megan Decker, '23 agricultural and rural policy studies, international agriculture

Hands-on approach

From Cyclones in the making to those already formed, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a place for everyone. The innovations made in the labs, the farms, the forests and the fields strive to carry out Iowa State’s original land grant mission: discovering, developing, disseminating and preserving knowledge.

Learn more about research within CALS

Explore Iowa State University demonstration farms

See the world with Iowa State

woman with bottle
Innovation in Action
men in field
Farms and Facilities
Economics field trip in London
Go Global

Recent News

  • Man with red shirt, graying hair (left) and young woman with gray shirt and long brown hair in front of ag scene mural

    New publication shares insights into AI for crop improvement from Iowa State researchers

    April 11, 2024

    For crop improvement, artifical intelligence provides a new lens to bridge science and practice, according to Jianming Yu, one of the world’s top-ranked scientists in the fields of quantitative genetics and plant breeding.

    “People have a lot of questions about how to actively start using AI in crop improvement. However, it is not easy to know how its tools can best be used,” said Yu, the Pioneer Distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding and director of the Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding in Iowa State University’s Department of Agronomy. 

    To help his peers, students and the public become more knowledgeable about the rapidly evolving field of AI, Yu and other co-authors, including Karlene Negus, a genetics doctoral student working with him, have published an overview on the role of AI in crop improvement in a scholarly compilation, Advances in Agronomy.

  • Nate Dobbels advising a student

    In the driver’s seat: Multidisciplinary option lets students customize their education

    April 10, 2024

    The new multidisciplinary option for agricultural studies majors puts students in the driver’s seat, offering a way to navigate those many topics. Within this option, students pick two areas of emphasis within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and another emphasis area that can also be within CALS or from another academic program at Iowa State University.

  • Maria Elisa Christie standing behind a podium in the front of an auditorium.

    Christie talks importance of including women in agricultural research

    April 10, 2024

    In celebration of International Women in Agriculture Day, Maria Elisa Christie, director of Women and Gender in International Development at the Center for International Research, Education and Development at Virginia Tech, presented “Integrating gender equity in international agricultural research for development.”

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