Sustainability – Badger Talks – UW–Madison

Bradley Bolling

mreinfeldt — Wed, 15 May 2024 19:10:56 +0000

Dr. Bolling’s research focuses on the health and sustainability of foods. His group is working to understand the composition and health benefits of underutilized fruits, vegetables, nuts and dairy products. Their current research focusses on improving immune health, reducing chronic inflammation, and reducing the risk of cancer and cardiometabolic diseases. Dr. Bolling is a Scientific Editor for the Journal of Food Science and Chair of the International Society for Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the Department of Food Science, including Food Preservation, Advanced Food Chemistry, and Food Bioactives.

Victor Cabrera

mreinfeldt — Tue, 21 May 2024 19:43:02 +0000

Dr. Cabrera combines applied research, interdisciplinary approaches, and participatory methods to deliver practical, data-driven, user-friendly, and scientific decision support tools for dairy farm management. These scientific tools are improving dairy farm profitability, environmental stewardship, and long-term sustainability. Dr. Cabrera’s research and extension programs have a global impact. Dr. Cabrera and his workgroup have developed 50 decision support tools, published 90+ refereed articles, and 10+ book chapters. Dr. Cabrera has presented in 100+ scientific sessions, and given extension talks in 400+ extension meetings in Wisconsin, other States, and around the world. Dr. Cabrera’s work in the past 14 years has been pivotal to attract $5.5+ million to support his research and extension initiatives.

Dr. Cabrera’s talks can also be offered in Spanish.

Amanda Gevens

mreinfeldt — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:56:07 +0000

Amanda Gevens is Department Chair and Professor, as well as Extension Plant Pathologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also serving as the Administrative Director of the Wisconsin Seed Potato Certification Program. Gevens develops integrated and innovative disease management programs for potato and vegetable crops during production and post-harvest. She addresses many fundamental disease questions with research programming in the focus areas of pathogen ecology and management. She organizes, contributes to, and edits a weekly vegetable crop updates newsletter through the University of Wisconsin Extension which has become highly sought after for in-season production guidance especially for disease and insect control. She earned her BS in Biology from Muhlenberg College in PA, her MS from Purdue University, and her PhD from Michigan State University.

Areas of expertise, continued: sustainable agriculture, soil health

Steven Hall

mreinfeldt — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 21:08:23 +0000

Our research and extension program aims to understand and improve the environmental impacts of agriculture on water quality and climate change adaptation/mitigation. To this end, our work particularly focuses on the role of soils in storing, transforming, and cycling nutrients and pollutants. Steven completed a PhD from the University of California-Berkeley and BS and MS degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining UW, he was faculty at Iowa State University and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah.

Michaela Hoffelmeyer

mreinfeldt — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 16:50:37 +0000

In 2023, I joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of the Dairy Innovation Hub-funded faculty. As part of this position, I will be conducting dairy-related research on topics such as robotics, labor, market concentration, and alternative farm models in the years to come. I earned my Ph.D. at Penn State University in Rural Sociology with a dual-title in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. My work seeks to understand how various groups access agricultural resources and how structural inequalities influence food production and environmental sustainability. Over the past several years, I have worked with rural and urban women farmers, queer/LGBTQ+ farmers, midscale farms undergoing succession and transfer, and meat processing workers.

Pronouns: She/her or they/them

Leslie Holland

jbedermann — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 20:28:02 +0000

Leslie Holland is an Assistant Professor & Extension Specialist in the department of Plant Pathology at UW-Madison. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Plant Pathology at UC Davis and Washington State University, respectively. The focus of her research program is the diagnosis and management of fruit crop diseases. Her extension program translates research findings into practical solutions to improve the productivity and sustainability of fruit production in Wisconsin. Her research interests span fungal disease complexes and the impact of environmental conditions on plant pathogens. She is an advocate for enhancing opportunities for minorities in STEM education and research and loves to share her enthusiasm for plant pathology and mycology with young scientists.

Brian Hudelson

mreinfeldt — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:32:49 +0000

Brian Hudelson is affectionately known as “Dr. Death” because of his love of plant diseases. Brian received his BS in Botany, Bacteriology and Molecular Biology, MS in Biometry and PhD in Plant Pathology from the UW-Madison, and in 1998, became the director of the Plant Disease Diagnostics Clinic (PDDC). The PDDC (part of the Department of Plant Pathology in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension) provides expertise in diagnosing plant diseases, and information on plant diseases and their control to a wide range of clientele throughout the state of Wisconsin.

Sarah Janes Ugoretz

mreinfeldt — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:17:48 +0000

Sarah is a Farm Labor Educator, collaborating closely with farm owners, managers, and workers across the country to build human skills and create work environments that support safe and rewarding labor experiences. She completed her PhD in Environment & Resources through the Nelson Institute, where her dissertation took the form of an applied scholarship portfolio (aka: action oriented!). Sarah draws from her own past experiences working on smaller scale vegetable farms.

Harkirat Kaur

mreinfeldt — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 20:31:59 +0000

I am Harkirat Kaur, and I recently began my role as an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Corn Production Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a corn agronomist, I aim to create a collaborative environment where we approach research holistically and provide pragmatic insights for crop production. My primary goal is to provide easy accessibility of research to the growers. Originally from the northwestern part of India, I grew up in a small village called Munak Khurd in Punjab, an agrarian state known as “India’s Breadbasket.” My family has been involved in agriculture for six generations, making it essential for me to work with and for the growers to ensure that research benefits them and supports their decision-making.

A speaker fee applies for Dr. Kaur’s talk.

Steffen Mirsky

mreinfeldt — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 14:22:52 +0000

Steffen Mirsky, Emerging Crops Outreach Program Coordinator, supports new crop development in Wisconsin to help diversity our food and farming systems. He is involved in research, farmer technical assistance, education outreach, and supply chain development. His current areas of focus include honeyberries and Kernza perennial grain.

Areas of expertise continued: Hazelnuts, Kernza perennial grain.