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Converting Waste to Black Gold
CALS student Joy Camenisch spent the summer in Spain, where she researched how composted manure can replace synthetic fertilizer.
October 12, 2026
Cara Hobbs Lewis
4-min. read
CALS student Joy Camenisch presents her poster on "Converting Waste to Black Gold: Modeling the Resilience of Composting" at the Talley Student Union during the CALS Student High-Impact Networking & Experiential Showcase (SHINES) event.
Born in Chicago and raised primarily in Charlotte, Joy Camenisch arrived at NC State University with a lifelong interest in animals, science, and research. Majoring in animal science and agroecology and sustainable food systems, Camenisch spent her summer in Spain working as an undergraduate researcher at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).
“I knew this summer would change me, but I couldn’t have imagined how much.” Camenisch says. “From making new friendships and memories to gaining new technical skills and knowledge, I gained a deeper awareness of how national political decisions and globalization can deeply influence international agriculture.”
As part of Packways, NC State’s high-impact experiences initiative, Camenisch traveled to Spain to work with doctoral students conducting research connected to a farm that uses a specialized manure-composting system. Designed to retain more nutrients and make them more available to crops, the project examined the carbon sequestration potential of composted dairy manure on agricultural sites.
Related
Growing the Future
Agroecology and sustainable food systems is a multidisciplinary major that offers students diverse courses, hands-on learning, community engagement, internships, and research experiences to learn about the connections between agriculture and food systems.
Dig Into the Possibilities
Leveraging Composted Manure
Camenisch’s independent research involved collecting data on the potential benefit of using composted manure in place of synthetic fertilizer. The project included coding, cleaning data sets, and building the parameters needed to model a realistic crop operation.
“I never expected to code, but I completed the Codecademy R course and used R code to model carbon sequestration potential in semiarid agronomic ecosystems,” Camenisch says. “I had to create my whole crop rotation and the whole crop management plan, and then calculate how much that would affect carbon removal.”
The effort yielded important data showing weather trends and impacts on Spanish farms.
“I observed how water scarcity, heat, and changing weather patterns create significant challenges for Spanish farms,” Camenisch says. “While dairy goats are more common and better adapted to the local environment, dairy cattle face particular heat-stress concerns.”
Camenisch tending to goats at the Universitat Politècnica de València.