Eli Newell
MPS Class of 2025, Global Development
- Pronouns: He/him
- Grand challenge: Circular economy of fertilizers, feeds, and water, with foci in Central America and East Africa
- Where he considers home: Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA
- Connect: ewn29 [at] cornell.edu (Email) | LinkedIn
Eli Newell’s driving objective is to deliver improved agricultural and economic prosperity with innovations in agronomy and livestock systems, community-engaged approaches, and collaboration across disciplines and regions.
Eli brings people together to explore how food systems can better serve humanity and steward the environment. He holds a B.S. in International Agriculture & Rural Development from Cornell, where he has led projects and supported research on sustainable agricultural inputs with colleagues in Kenya and Honduras.
Eli’s work is unified by a common theme of advancing a circular economy that maximizes the value recovered from wastewater and organic waste streams while minimizing the environmental and other public burdens they pose. Eli collaborates on several current research areas, including soil amendments in Kenya’s Lake Victoria basin, insect production as a protein source for poultry feeds in Honduras, and land application of aquaculture wastewater.
As an MPS student in Global Development and in partnership with his mentors Prof. Rebecca Nelson and Dr. Eugene Won, Eli plans to focus on integrated aquaculture and fertigation schemes to optimize utilization of irrigation water. Eli comes to the MPS program with practical agricultural experience, grant-writing experience, experiment design and analysis skills, and a love of learning new skills and concepts that will make him more effective. Upon completing his MPS degree, Eli plans to continue working in the field of international agricultural development and enterprise, improving productivity and sustainability in key regions.