Rate My Professor Lori Youngberg

Lori Youngberg is a Program Specialist III at Iowa State University of Science and Technology's Seed Science Center, where she comprehensively manages the Graduate Program in Seed Technology and Business. This entails oversight of a Master of Science degree program along with two graduate certificate programs tailored for professionals in the seed industry. In her role, Youngberg provides expert advising to students regarding admissions status, course selection and registration, individualized program planning, development of creative components, and navigation through graduation requirements. She supervises program staff, recruits and hires adjunct faculty to deliver courses, conducts thorough evaluations and assessments of program performance, and drives continuous improvement by establishing and pursuing short- and long-term strategic goals. Additionally, she organizes an annual fall on-campus short course focused on Seed Science and Technology and coordinates a bi-annual webinar series addressing critical topics in seed science and seed business management. Through these initiatives, Youngberg has significantly expanded the STB program's reach, increasing student enrollment and creating enhanced educational opportunities for the global seed industry.

Youngberg earned her M.A. in Education from Iowa State University. Her professional excellence has been acknowledged with the “Students First Award” presented by the Great Plains Initiative, a consortium dedicated to online learning. She also holds a Continuing Education Certification in “Creating Presence in Online Courses” from the University of Wisconsin. Key achievements under her leadership include the development and implementation of both on-campus and online Canvas orientation courses for incoming STB students, the inception and coordination of short courses and the bi-annual webinar series, the design of a novel online guided creative component course within Canvas, and the organization of annual faculty lunch-and-learn networking events. Furthermore, Youngberg has contributed to scholarly discourse through co-authorship of notable publications, such as the 2006 paper “Evaluation of a Web-Based Master's Degree Program” with colleagues Jiaqi Yu and Gary Munkvold, and the 2018 article “An Online Graduate Program Evaluation: What Do Course Instructors Have to Say?”. These works underscore her expertise in evaluating and enhancing online graduate programs in specialized fields like seed technology and business. Her dedicated service has had a lasting impact on professional development within the seed sector.