Soil, Water and Food (SWF) Nexus Lightning Talk Series: Part 1

Mark your calendars as the working team brings together transdisciplinary faculty for two lightning talk sessions at the nexus of SWF. This series intends to foster greater cross-campus collaboration and identify potential center-level funding targets moving forward.

PRESENTERS

RACHEL HESTRIN

Assistant Professor: Stockbridge

Rachel Hestrin is broadly interested in plant-microbe-soil interactions and ecosystems response to change. Much of her lab’s research focuses on rhizosphere and hyphosphere processes that influence productivity, stress tolerance, organic matter dynamics, and nutrient cycling. Her lab’s work spans multiple scales and approaches—from isotope-enabled genomics and cellular imaging to multi-farm field trials. She seeks to answer questions such as: How do microbes mediate plant nutrient acquisition and carbon allocation below ground? Do mycorrhizal fungi recruit functionally distinct microbial communities that confer different benefits to their hosts? How are plant- and fungal-derived soil organic matter inputs affected by environmental conditions or agricultural management? Which management practices facilitate beneficial plant-microbe interactions?

DAVID BOUTT

Professor: Environmental Science; Earth, Geographic, and Climate Science

David Boutt’s research is focused on the subsurface part of the hydrologic cycle. Groundwater globally contributes to 2/3 of all streamflow and is an essential component of any hydrologic budget. His work is focused on how water becomes groundwater and the sub-surface processes that impact it along its journey. This includes understanding how groundwater contributes to streamflow generation and springs. He also does a lot of work to understand how much water is available for a region at a given time in geologic history and what the source of this water is. His research has taken him all over the globe from Japan to the Island of Tobago. Some of his current work is focused on lithium brines in the Great Basin of the western United States and the wild of the Atacama desert in northern Chile.

CHRISTINE HATCH

UMass Extension Professor
Associate Director for Academics, UMass iCONs

Surface water and groundwater are increasingly viewed as a single resource. Interesting processes and transitions occur at interfaces between streams (surface water) and underground reservoirs (groundwater aquifers), some of which can be tracked using heat as a tracer (including Distributed Temperature Sensing: DTS, or fiber-optic cables). When water moves between these reservoirs, there are wide-ranging effects on biological communities, water resources and water quantity and quality. Christine Hatch strives to understand these systems and to educate others about how they function so that together we may effectively preserve and protect our most basic and precious natural resource: water. As anthropogenic forcings produce now inevitable changes in our climate, she hopes to quantify the effects of these changes on our water resources to help us prepare for a safe and sustainable future.

SUSAN SCHEUFELE

Extension Vegetable Production

Sue Scheufele leads UMass Extension’s Vegetable and Fruit Programs. Their teams work with commercial growers and gardeners across the state to address food production challenges including climate change, pest pressure, soil health, food safety, pollinator health, and more, through direct technical assistance. They visit farms to help solve problems, write newsletters, give presentations, and host workshops and conferences for farmers to learn the latest, science-based techniques to produce healthy, local food and sustain their businesses. They also do applied research to help growers to decide which varieties to plant, to use water efficiently, to utilize new technologies, to apply pesticides safely and effectively, to support pollinators and beneficial insects, and other practical and adoptable topics.

DANIEL COOLEY

Professor: Stockbridge

Dan Cooley’s work focuses on the ecology of plant diseases and the impacts their management have on environmental and human health. It is focused on commercial fruit production in the northeastern US, but has national and international impact. The primary goal is to reduce fungicide use in apples and other crops by applying an understanding of ecology and modern technical tools. As part of this, he works on disease forecast models and web-based decision support systems for delivering information to growers. His extension work centers on promoting adoption of more environmentally and economically sustainable production methods such as IPM. He teaches courses in plant disease management and the ecology of food, agriculture and disease., and is affiliated with the School of Earth and Sustainability, the Environmental Science program, and the Plant Biology program.

JASON LANIER

Extension Team Leader

Jason Lanier received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Plant and Soil Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and has worked with UMass Extension since 2000. During this tenure he has participated in all facets of Extension education and programming including project development and management, facilitation of educational programs and resources, and frequent interaction with the industry, political decision makers and the greater public. He has served as an editor and contributing author for several publications, and has provided academic instruction in varied forums ranging from workshops, to certificate programs, to University courses. Jason has experience and proficiency in key subject areas within the horticultural realm, including plant stress physiology, water and nutrient management, sustainability, input reduction, IPM and Best Management Practices.

DAVID JULIAN MCCLEMENTS

Professor: Food Science

David Julian McClements is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts. He specializes in the areas of food biopolymers and colloids, and in particular on the development of food-based structured delivery systems for bioactive components. McClements received his Ph.D. in Food Science (1989) at the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) in ultrasonic spectrometry. He then did Post-Doctoral Research at the University of Leeds, University of California (Davis) and University College Cork (Ireland). Prof. McClements has previously received awards from the American Chemical Society, American Oil Chemists Society, Society of Chemical Industry (UK), Institute of Food Technologists, and University of Massachusetts in recognition of his scientific achievements. Dr. McClements is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, American Chemical Society (Agricultural and Food Division), and Institute of Food Technologists. He is the co-editor of Annual Reviews in Food Science and Technology, and a member of the editorial boards of a number of other journals. He has organized numerous workshops, symposia, and international conferences in the field of food colloids, emulsions, and delivery systems

ASHLEY KEISER

Assistant Professor: Stockbridge

Ashely Keiser is an ecosystem ecologist working at the interface of plant and soil microbial communities across both forested and agricultural systems. Her lab’s approaches integrate local, mechanism-driven questions that help advance ecological theory regarding soil microbial community function (i.e. litter decomposition) and landscape-level biogeochemical inquiries that link ecosystem function with land management decisions. Overall, her lab works to expand our understanding of how soil microbial community function, exhibited through carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics, will change with shifting plant communities, land management regimes, and climate.