Stockbridge Retired and Emeritus Faculty : Stockbridge School of Agriculture : UMass Amherst

Former Director and Professor Emeritus—Tree-Fruit Horticulture

Until recently, Wes Autio served as the UMass Fruit Program Leader. He regularly interacts with tree-fruit farmers and the many individuals interested in tree fruit in the landscape. His research focuses on apple and peach rootstocks, controlling growth apple trees with mechanical and hormonal approaches, and chemical thinning of peaches. He teaches courses in pruning fruit crops for undergraduates and in statistical analysis for graduate students.

Prasanta Bhowmik

Professor Emeritus—Weed Science, Sustainable Turf Management

Professor Bhowmik's research interests include biology and management of perennial weeds, weed management strategies with emphasis on cultural practices, sequential applications, reduced rate use, organic products, and growth regulators, tolerance of turfgrass species and cultivars under NTEP to new registered herbicides, and evaluation of new herbicides and bio-control products.

Daniel Cooley

Former Associate Director and ProfessorEmeritus of Plant Pathology, Fruit Pathology

I am currently retired from active research and UMass Extension work, though I am continuing to do some teaching and administrative work post-retirement. I am no longer accepting graduate students.

My 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, I work on disease forecast models and web-based decision support systems for delivering information to growers. My extension work centers on promoting adoption of more environmentally and economically sustainable production methods such as IPM. I teach courses in plant disease management and the ecology of food, agriculture and disease., and am affiliated with the School of Earth and Sustainability, the Environmental Science program, and the Plant Biology program.

Douglas Cox

Associate Professor—Greenhouse Crops and Floriculture

J. Scott Ebdon

Professor Emeritus—Agronomy and Turfgrass Science

Professor Ebdon's research interests include reducing water, fertilizer, and pesticide inputs in the maintenance of golf, sports and lawn turf, understanding the interaction between turfgrass species-cultivars with their natural and cultural environments, identifying cultivars with superior tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress, and developing sustainable practices to reduce turfgrass stress

Duane Greene

Professor Emeritus—Fruit Physiology, Horticulture Thinning & Varieties

Susan Han

Associate Professor—Greenhouse Crops, Post-Harvest Physiology

Frank Mangan

Extension Professor Emeritus—Vegetable Crop Horticulture & Marketing

My program implements outreach, teaching, and research to establish sustainable production practices on vegetable and herb crops grown by commercial farmers in the Northeastern United States. A growing focus of my program since 2000 has been on establishing production and marketing systems for vegetable and herb crops popular among the large and growing immigrant communities in this region, in particular native speakers of Spanish and Portuguese. Most of the research done by my program has been at the UMass Research Farm in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where we also evaluate practical postharvest and pest management strategies for these new crops. My program has also worked closely with nutritionists at UMass to provide nutritionally balanced and culturally appropriate recipes for these immigrant groups using locally grown fresh vegetables and herbs. Starting in 2011, we have begun to work with urban growers as part of an overall systems approach to provide fresh produce to urban populations in Massachusetts and the region.

Barbara Miller

Assistant to the Director

John Stoffolano

Professor—Entomology

My current research program involves using house fly as a model vector for various pathogens (E. coli and V. cholerae). Currently, I have the following research collaborative programs: The role of the adult crop of Musca domestica in vectoring the food pathogen E. coli (with Dr. Lynne McLandsborough, Food Science Dept.); The electrophysiology of the adult crop organ (Univ. of Cagliari, Italy, with Drs. Anna Liscia and Paolo Solari); Role of Phote-HrTH (Phormia terraenovae hypertrehalosemic hormone) and its analogues in modulating the supercontractile muscles of the crop of adult Phormia regina Meigen (with Dr. Gerd Gäde, University of Cape Town, South Africa); SEM/TEM of the adult crop organ of flies (with Drs. Anna Maria Fausto’s lab.); Role of various peptides on the adult crop organ muscles (with Dr. James Chambers, Univ. of Massachusetts, Chemistry Dept.); House fly as a vector of Vibrio cholerae (with Dr. Alix Purdy, Biology Dept., Amherst College. Projected collaborative projects include the following: Flies as vectors of pathogens in Italy (with Drs. Antonio Fasanella and Annuziata Giangaspero). Flies as vectors of pathogens in Egypt (with Dr. Ghada M. Lotfy El-Bassiony, Cairo University, Faculty of Science, Dept. of Entomology).

Robert Wick

Professor Emeritus—Plant Pathology & Diagnostics

My appointment to the University of Massachusetts includes extension, teaching and research. My major extension activities are in the Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic and Nematode Assay Lab. The Plant Clinic provides support for the UMass Vegetable, Floriculture, Turf and Fruit IPM programs. My research program is targeted to the vegetable, floriculture and turf industries. Current research projects include late blight of potato and tomato, downy mildew of basil and cucurbits, Phytophthora blight of cucurbits, and management of nematodes in turf grasses. I am also working on a perennial canker disease of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) in Bangladesh. I teach Plant Pathology, Diagnostic Plant Pathology, Forest Pathology and Mycology. I have also taught courses in Turfgrass Pathology, Nematology and Biological Control of Plant Diseases. I taught Diagnostic Plant Pathology at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) twice, with the support of a Fulbright Scholar award in 2006 and 2014, and received a USDA grant to develop the first dedicated plant disease diagnostic clinic in Bangladesh.

Patricia Vittum

Professor Emeritus—Turfgrass Entomology