Brandon Sawyer ’26, an agricultural sciences major and accounting minor, died earlier this month, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Benjamin Houlton and Dean of Students Marla Love wrote in a Wednesday morning email to the CALS community obtained by The Sun.
At the time of his passing, Sawyer, a transfer student from McGill University, was on leave from Cornell, interning with McCain Foods in Oxford, Mississippi. As an agronomy intern, he worked to produce sustainable potato products for consumers all around the world. Sawyer was passionate about environment and sustainability along with helping fight world hunger.
His love for agriculture stemmed from growing up farming and raising animals in rural Ontario, Canada, according to the email. Sawyer was a dual citizen in the United States and Canada.
In the summer months of 2021 and 2022, Sawyer interned in accounting roles at Hucks Marine and Resort in Ontario. Sawyer was also a host of Sweet Talk: All Things Maple, a podcast facilitated through the Cornell Maple Program, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Sawyer was a member of Delta Upsilon, a social fraternity, and involved with the Cornell University Dairy Science Club. His cause of death was not mentioned in the email.
Cornell will hold a community support meeting on Thursday, Oct. 26, 5 to 6 p.m. in 213 Kennedy Hall for those wishing to come together as a community during this time.