Nearly 15,000 students attend Cornell University, an Ivy League college set against the rolling hills and gorges of Ithaca, New York. Getting in is no easy feat; just 15% of applicants are accepted, and a great majority graduated in the top 10% of their high-school classes. We sought the help of Cornell's public-affairs office to track down the best and brightest students.Edgar Akuffo-Addo is combatting malnutrition in Ghana. Class of 2016 Akuffo-Addo, the recipient of a Projects for Peace grant, launched ENAM to build a sustainable poultry farm in a deprived Ghanaian village. The community space aims to alleviate the threat of malnutrition by providing a local, dramatically cheaper source of animal protein in an area in which women and children suffer severely. Akuffo-Addo has secured funding, three acres of land, and the chicks, and he is passing the construction reins over to locals and expert building contractors — all despite pushbacks thanks to an unfavorable economy in Ghana. Still, he anticipates about 250 families will benefit from the farm upon its completion this summer. The human biology major is applying for a master's degree in healthcare administration at Cornell, and he plans to one day earn his medical degree. Kristen Barnett summited Mt. Kilimanjaro for charity. Class of 2015 As the president of Mountains for Moms, Barnett led a 13-person trip to the 19,341-foot-high summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro and raised more than $19,000 to combat obstetric fistula. The money funded more than 90 reconstructive surgeries for women suffering from this painful condition. Barnett also founded the Dyson Symposium on Women in Leadership, a conference to boost support and programming for women in leadership on campus. She invited female leaders to speak and present, bringing together more than 120 participants at the two-day conference. The president of the business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, Barnett will join the Boston Consulting Group when she graduates; she plans to eventually work and live in Europe and to go to business school in Boston. Marianne Collard is discovering potential medicinal properties in the plant fenugreek. Class of 2015 Collard has been researching the health effects of fenugreek, an herbaceous plant whose seeds are often used in Indian, North African, and Middle Eastern cooking. Fenugreek is the least-studied plant containing phytoestrogens, chemical compounds that can interact with human hormones. In studying their properties and applying them to human health, Collard sought to isolate the compound that has been recorded to interact with hormones like estrogen and even to increase the production of breast milk in lactating women. Fenugreek could either be harmful or beneficial, depending on an individual's health situation, and Collard's research sees potential toxicological purposes in the plant that could eventually be used in medication. Collard is also a captain of the Cornell cross-country team, and she plans to get a Ph.D. in pharmacology when she graduates. See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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