Against the Grain: Dr. Salah Issa on Innovating Ag Safety

Dr. Salah Issa’s career in agricultural safety began in an unexpected way. Starting out at a graduate program in Ecological Sciences and Engineering at Purdue University as a self-described “city kid”, he was unaware that agricultural engineering was even a career option. It wasn’t until he took a course in agrosecurity that the world of agriculture, and its hazards, opened up to him. 

“My undergraduate degree was in biochemistry, and I originally thought I would be working in a lab,” he says. “Before I arrived at Purdue in 2009, I had no real grasp of agricultural engineering or the amount of research that goes into agriculture. But the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. Along the way, I realized I didn’t want to spend my career in a biochemical lab; I preferred working with people.” 

This period marked the beginning of Issa’s career in ag safety, a field he has now spent over a decade advancing, focusing his research and extension work on injury prevention and hazard reduction in agriculture with the help of new technologies. 

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