At 8 years old, Danielle Essandoh unearthed a fascination with agriculture and never looked back.
Her grandfather, a peanut farmer, welcomed her help around the family farm in her home country of Ghana, and Essandoh embraced farm life with enthusiasm. Essandoh enjoyed the feeling of providing for her family and continued farming through high school. Today, as a doctoral student in the Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics (IPBGG) at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Essandoh remains driven by her desire to help people sustain themselves.
Her choice to study plant breeding was an easy one. Essandoh realized she could both help others and pursue her passion for agriculture through research driven by her farming experience and understanding of the peanut’s nutritional potential in developing areas.