Biographies 

Dr. Anthony LeBude

Dr. Anthony LeBude is a Research and Extension Associate Professor of Nursery Crops at NC State University stationed at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River, NC. He is the project director for Labor, Efficiency, Automation, and Production: LEAP Nursery Crops Toward Sustainability. He also serves on the Project Management Team as well as collaborates as a nursery liaison for the socioeconomics, behavioral adoption and consumer preference teams. His main duties are to govern the project to achieve its stated goals of inventing and commercializing automation, increasing adoption of existing automation, and educating stakeholders, Extension agents, producers and the advisory board about LEAPs progress, products created, and outcomes achieved. His lab will aid in the development and testing of LEAP invented automation as well as evaluate existing technologies by testing prototype irrigation, inventory, and herbicide automation. He will assist with research efforts that investigate challenges to maintaining quality in production as well as grower attitudes toward accepting new automation technologies, their adoption and retention. Additionally he will assist in training producers and Extension agents about horticultural technologies, Integrated Pest Management strategies, and practices that refine production, maintain quality, improve efficiency, or reduce their environmental footprint.  ​

Dr. Amy Fulcher

Dr. Amy Fulcher is an Extension Specialist and Professor at the University of Tennessee and serves as the statewide coordinator for the Original and Advanced Tennessee Master Nursery Producer program. Dr. Fulcher is Co-Project Director of the LEAP Team’s CAP proposal, serves on the Project Management Team, and leads the Research Management team and the Production and Engineering Objective. She served as project director for the LEAP Team’s USDA SCRI Planning Grant (Award No. 2020-51181-32137), coordinating the team’s effort to conduct a national assessment of nursery labor challenges, grower perceptions, and barriers and motivators to adopting automation that led to this successful coordinated agricultural project.  
Dr. Fulcher’s research and extension programming focus on helping growers use technology to optimize production practices and improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the nursery industry. Her lab will interface with LEAP Team engineers to aid in the development of new automation and will test prototype irrigation, inventory, and herbicide automation. 

Dr. Chris Marble

Dr. Chris Marble is an Associate Professor of Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Mid-Florida Research and Education Center located in Apopka, FL. His research and extension program focus on weed management in ornamental plants, both in production and in landscape plantings. Major research and extension efforts focus on developing and implementing new and innovative methods of weed management in nursery production and understanding how production practices influence weed growth and reproduction, herbicide efficacy, and ornamental plant growth. 
For L.E.A.P., Dr. Marble will evaluate automated herbicide sprayer technologies and determine the efficacy, efficiency, uniformity, and overall performance of various herbicide and fertilizer application methods. Dr. Marble will also coordinate all L.E.A.P extension efforts across the U.S. and help organize L.E.A.P. events and curate L.E.A.P. extension deliverables.   ​

Dr. James Altland

Dr. James Altland is the Research Leader for the Application Technology Research Unit (ATRU).  This unit currently includes 10 scientists and their support staff. He focuses on agricultural spray technologies and all aspects of controlled environment agriculture (CEA), including entomology, plant pathology, irrigation and water quality, plant physiology, energy efficiency, and systems engineering.  
His specific interests are in the chemical, physical, and biological properties of container substrates and how they can be managed and modified for sustainable crop production.  Recent research has focused on chemical amendments to reduce the amount of phosphorus (P) leached from containers.  Other research has explored novel physical components to replace expensive and non-sustainable substrate materials currently being used. A major emphasis of current research is to better understand the biological properties of container substrates by documenting how management practices affect the microbiome.  Using amplicon sequencing techniques, he observes the change in microbial communities over the production cycle of crops exposed to different management practices. 

Dr. Karla Addesso

Dr. Karla Addesso is a Professor of Entomology and Center Director at Tennessee State University's Nursery Research Center in McMinnville, TN. Her work focuses on sustainable pest management in woody ornamental production. She has conducted research on numerous pests relevant to nursery and landscape in the southeast, including ambrosia beetles, flatheaded borers, Japanese beetles, scales and mites. She is currently leading a nation-wide project to develop improved flatheaded borer management tools with a team of university scientists working in nursery, landscape and orchard systems. She is active in regional and national professional organizations and has served on the Entomological Society of America Governing Board since 2019.  

Dr. Le Chen

Le Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Chen earned her PhD in Economics from North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on applied production economics, with a particular emphasis on the economics of soil health management practices, such as cover crops and conservation tillage, as well as agricultural policies related to risk management, technology adoption, and dynamic decision-making. Dr. Chen applies econometric methods, risk theory, and dynamic optimization modeling to address policy-relevant challenges in sustainable agricultural production and risk management. Her work aims to develop strategies that enhance both economic profitability and long-term environmental sustainability.  

Dr. Lloyd Nackley

Dr. Lloyd Nackley is an Associate Professor of Nursery Production and Greenhouse Management at Oregon State University and serves as the research leader for the Oregon State University Nursery Working Group. Dr. Nackley is stationed at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center, has statewide Extension responsibilities, and also teaches at the main campus in Corvallis. 
Dr. Nackley’s research focuses on climate change adaptation, particularly on plant-water interactions, with an emphasis on irrigation optimization and heat stress mitigation. A trained plant ecologist, he is known for integrating sensor-based technologies to improve labor efficiencies, reduce environmental pollution, and enhance sustainable horticultural production. 
For the LEAP Team, Dr. Nackley will serve as the liaison with the Nursery Industry Advisory Committee. This role is critical, as he will be responsible for communicating discoveries with the industry and conveying industry needs and opinions back to the research team. Dr. Nackley will also be the lead project coordinator for all research in Oregon, one of the largest nursery-producing states in the U.S. and a focal point for the LEAP projects. ​

Dr. Marco Palma

Dr. Marco A Palma is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. His areas of interest are consumer economics, experimental and behavioral economics and neuroeconomics. Dr. Palma will collaborate with Dr. Ribera to conduct the economic profitability analysis and evaluate economic and non-economic factors that influence adoption decisions. Based on the economic analysis, a socioeconomic impact framework will be used to measure the impacts of the project to the industry.    ​

Dr. Luis Ribera

Dr. Luis A. Ribera is a Professor and Extension Economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. His areas of interest are international trade, risk analysis, simulation and economic impacts. Dr. Ribera will collaborate with Dr. Palma to conduct the economic profitability analysis and evaluate economic and non-economic factors that influence adoption decisions. Based on the economic analysis, a socioeconomic impact framework will be used to measure the impacts of the project to the industry.  ​

Dr. Alicia Rihn

Alicia joined the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville in July 2020. She is a Minnesota native with a background in specialty crop marketing research. Her research and extension programs focus on consumer behavior, willingness-to-pay, and perceptions of specialty crops and niche products. She is interested in addressing how people perceive products, interact with them, and the best marketing strategies to add value for customers and businesses alike. She uses eye-tracking technologies and applied economics to generate actionable insights based on these topics of interest. Her current research topics include plant benefit information, native plant perceptions, alternative pest control methods, ecommerce, point-of-sale information, labor, and the economy. ​

Dr. Taylor Ruth 

Dr. Taylor Ruth is an Assistant Professor of Agriculture and Natural Resources Science Communication in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Ruth will contribute to the Behavior Adoption objective (#3) and the Consumer Preference objective (#4). Her research program explores the nexus of agricultural literacy, science literacy, and media literacy to best understand the way individuals make decisions and process complex information related to agricultural sciences. Dr. Ruth has an extensive background in both focus group methodology and large-scale consumer survey design. As part of the LEAP team, she will lead the development and testing of different message strategies to promote stakeholder adoption.    ​

Dr. Margarita Velandia

Margarita Velandia, Professor, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UT: Dr. Velandia holds a PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics. Her research and Extension programs focus on the factors influencing decision-making processes in production economics and farm management, including 1) adoption of technologies such as precision farming and mechanization technologies and 2) adoption of environmentally sustainable production practices such as biodegradable mulches and Integrated Pest Management Strategies (IPM). She conducts producer surveys to evaluate the factors influencing the adoption of different technologies and production practices. She also prepares enterprise budgets for various agricultural cropping systems, conducts economic feasibility analysis of precision farming technologies and environmentally sustainable production practices, and develops decision-aid tools to help agricultural producers make informed decisions. Additionally, she investigates labor shortage challenges faced by US specialty crop operations and the alternatives to overcome these challenges. ​

Dr. Laura Warner 

Dr. Laura Warner is a Professor of Extension education and Extension Specialist in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication and the Center for Land Use Efficiency at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Warner serves on LEAP’s Project Management Team, and leads the Behavioral Adoption objective (#3). She previously served as co-PI on the LEAP Team’s USDA SCRI Planning Grant (Award No. 2020-51181-32137) and led the Behavioral Adoption component. Dr. Warner specializes in understanding behavioral influences on adoption of best practices among key target audiences and translating behavioral theory into practical action. Warner’s Extension programming translates her research findings into impactful extension, outreach, communication, and policy recommendations that bridge the gap between innovation and adoption. Her team will explore the factors that influence adoption of various automated nursery technologies to identify promising strategies to accelerate adoption.  ​

Dr. Heping Zhu

Dr. Heping Zhu is an Agricultural Engineer with USDA/ARS Application Technology Research Unit in Wooster, Ohio. He is also an Adjunct Professor at The Ohio State University. He has more than 35 years of academic research and industrial experience in developing innovative methodologies and mechanisms to advance pesticide delivery systems to protect crops and the environment. His research findings have been used to efficiently apply pest control agents, teach classes, assess chemical contamination, design sprayers and nozzles, improve chemical formulations, and control invasive plants, resulting in significant cost savings for horticultural and traditional crop production. For the LEAP project, Dr. Zhu will lead the development of automated inventory management systems to enhance nursery production. ​