UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences honored six alumni with 2025 Outstanding Alumni awards in a ceremony on April 10 in State College.
The Outstanding Alumni and Outstanding Recent Alumni Awards recognize alumni for their achievements and provide opportunities for recipients to interact with the college’s faculty, students and other alumni.
“Each year it is an honor to recognize the impressive achievements of our alumni,” said Troy L. Ott, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences. “This year’s six honorees are prime examples of the caliber of our graduates. They have gone on to make an indelible impact in their chosen fields, and we are proud to recognize them as they inspire the next generation of Ag Sciences students.”
In addition, the six honorees were inducted into the college’s Armsby Honor Society alongside four other inductees. The Armsby Society honors alumni and friends who have demonstrated a profound commitment to the College of Agricultural Sciences through their service, scholarship, teaching and philanthropy.
College of Agricultural Sciences Outstanding Alumni Award recipients
Clayton Myers received his doctorate in entomology from Penn State in 2005. An entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Pest Management Policy, he is a leading expert in the fields of pesticides and pest management strategies.
Through his scientific work, Myers has informed the policies of the USDA and helped ensure pest management strategies are effective and environmentally responsible. He is engaged with the regulatory process surrounding pesticide use, collaborates with various stakeholders for policy development, and has a role on the USDA’s hemp working group. He also is the primary USDA contact for pest management needs for commercial aquaculture and for interagency deliberations with the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration for the management of animal health products for commercial livestock and honeybees.
Myers received a University Graduate Fellowship to attend Penn State, and, during his tenure, received a USDA Cooperative State Research Extension and Education Service (now National Institute of Food and Agriculture) internship in Washington, D.C. He authored numerous academic publications and received several additional scholarships and awards while a student.
Krista Pontius earned bachelor’s and graduate degrees in agricultural and extension education from the college in 1997 and 2005, respectively. She is an award-winning agricultural education teacher and FFA adviser in Pennsylvania’s Greenwood School District. In that role, she teaches subjects such as environmental science, animal biotechnology, sustainable agriculture and food science.
During her career, Pontius has coached 36 agriscience teams to state and national victories, three state-winning Ag Issues Forum teams, and five National Gold and Silver Emblem Parliamentary Procedure teams, and has advised a National Proficiency Winner. She was named the Christopher Columbus National Science Teacher of the Year, received the National Teach Ag Champion award and Region VI Outstanding Service Citation, and was appointed to the National FFA Board of Trustees.
Pontius serves as the program coordinator and Teach Ag Program facilitator for the National Association of Agricultural Educators and as a curriculum writer for the Center for Dairy Excellence. She was an adjunct professor at Harrisburg Area Community College, where she helped establish the agribusiness curriculum for high school agricultural programs. She has also helped her school district’s agricultural department secure six-figure grant funding and nearly $90,000 for her county’s food bank.
Maurice Smith earned his doctorate in agricultural and extension education from Penn State in 2017. A national program leader with the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, he provides leadership for the 1890 National Scholarship Program and 4-H youth development programs.
Through a focus on minority-serving institutions and underserved youth, Smith has been instrumental in expanding opportunities. He oversees the Youth Innovators Empowering Agriculture Across America program, which awards money to support USDA priorities through partnerships with Cooperative Extension Service regions. He also co-leads the organization of the National 4-H Conference. He was honored by USDA-NIFA with the 2023 A.J. Dye Diversity Award, which recognizes achievements in promoting diversity and innovation in program design and implementation.
Previously, Smith served as an assistant professor and extension specialist at Virginia State University, where his work with 4-H programming expanded its reach with underrepresented and at-risk youth. While there, he also trained and mentored nearly 40 new 4-H extension agents and advised the university’s chapter of Minorities in Agriculture and Natural Resources and Related Sciences, Collegiate 4-H Club, Virginia 4-H State Cabinet, and local Junior MANRRS programs.
While at Penn State pursuing a doctoral degree, Smith co-led the Fox Graduate School Summer Research Opportunities Program, was involved in MANRRS, and collaborated with the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Office of Undergraduate Education to recruit, mentor and advise students from diverse backgrounds.
Mike Levengood received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business management in 1983. A vice president, chief animal care officer and farmer relationship advocate at Perdue Foods, he has forged a more than 40-year career in the poultry industry with the company. From his starting role as a flock advisor, through numerous management positions, and now at the executive level, he has demonstrated continuous leadership, problem-solving abilities and relationship-building skills, while mentoring and developing other leaders across the industry.
Through his membership on the USPOULTRY board of directors, including as chairman in 2022, Levengood has been an advocate for collegiate poultry science programs through the USPOULTRY Ford Foundation. Thanks to his advocacy, schools with animal science programs with poultry science minors that place many graduates in the industry became eligible to apply for additional funding. The college has received this funding every year for the past 10 years.
Levengood routinely returns to Penn State — meeting with the college’s Poultry Science Club and mentoring individual students — and also said he welcomes students to Perdue Foods locations for industry tours.
College of Agricultural Sciences Outstanding Recent Alumni Award recipients
Michelle Tran earned a graduate degree in food science from the college in 2017. She is currently the director of food safety and quality technical services at HP Hood LLC, where she leads a team responsible for sanitation, food safety programs, quality engineering and corporate laboratory functions. She collaborates with leaders from HP Hood’s 15 plants across the country, which produce conventional and aseptic milk products, cultured dairy products, ice cream and more.
While at Penn State, Tran’s graduate research focused on high pressure jet processing and the stabilization of chocolate milk. Her novel research, under Professor of Food Science Federico Harte, resulted in a scientific publication and a patent. She has returned to Penn State regularly to connect with current graduate students and recruit for her employer.
Olivia Murphy-Sweet is a 2016 bachelor’s degree alumna of the college in agricultural and extension education. After graduating from Penn State, she spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal providing leadership in promoting gender equality through community engagement and specialized training programs. Following her time in the Peace Corps, she pursued two master’s degrees at the University of Idaho in agricultural education and in curriculum development and design. She took an agricultural education position at a rural Idaho high school where she rejuvenated the agricultural education program, creating and integrating agricultural welding, agricultural mechanics and horticulture curricula.
Since 2022, Murphy-Sweet has been the executive director of Field of Hope in Washington, an international nongovernmental organization focused on building resilience in the livelihoods of smallholder farms in Uganda. She oversees a team that completes projects on the ground in Uganda and helps build and implement fundraising initiatives, among other key responsibilities.
Murphy-Sweet regularly mentors agricultural and extension education students at Penn State, participates in the Global TeachAg Network’s GOALS program, and has played a key role in organizing and supporting immersive experiences for Pennsylvania agriscience teachers through programs such as TeachAgUganda.