Drew Gholson is an Assistant Professor and Irrigation Specialist and serves as Coordinator for the National Center for Alluvial Aquifer Research with Mississippi State University located at the Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville, MS. His research and outreach include conceiving, developing, and promoting the adoption of profitable irrigation management strategies that conserve water, maintain soil resources, and improve water quality. His focus is to produce and communicate research directed at the conservation and sustainability of water resources for agriculture.

Prasanta K. Subudhi

Prasanta K. Subudhi will be responsible for overall coordination and execution of the CRISP-RICE Coordinated Agricultural Project. He will supervise the activities related to the development of mapping populations and advanced breeding lines, pyramiding of desirable traits/QTLs, genotyping, and application of next generation sequencing tools to improve abiotic stress tolerance in rice.

Christine Gambino

Christine Gambino is the extension associate for the CRISP-Rice grant. She will be responsible for the coordination of extension activities including helping to organize meetings, developing print materials, and producing digital content. She has her bachelor’s degree in Horticulture from LSU and has worked in research for two years. She is stationed in the Entomology department at LSU where she will be obtaining her master’s. Her main interests are in science communication and how soil health relates to pest resistance. Please contact her at cgambino@agcenter.lsu.edu with any questions or comments!

Felipe Dalla Lana

Felipe Dalla Lana is an assistant professor of rice pathology at H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station and Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology and state specialist for rice diseases. Dr. Dalla Lana’s research interests include the epidemiology and disease management of rice. On the CRISP-RICE he will be responsible for the development of disease assessment models for sheath blight.

Blake Wilson

Blake Wilson is Associate Professor and Extension Specialist with responsibility for sugarcane and rice insect pest management. He has 15 years’ experience in integrated pest management research in rice, sugarcane, and other row crops. Dr. Wilson will oversee research into sustainable crop protection from key rice pests including the rice water weevil and stem borers. He will also manage crop protection extension activities.

Md Rasel Parvej

Md Rasel Parvej is working as an Assistant Professor and State Soil Fertility Specialist for Louisiana State University Agricultural Center – Scott Research, Extension, and Education Center and School of Plant, Environment, and Soil Sciences since Oct. 2019. Previously he has worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Iowa State University as well as at Virginia Tech. Dr. Parvej received his Ph.D. degree in Dec. 2015 from the Department of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences at University of Arkansas with the expertise in soil fertility, plant nutrition, and nutrient management. He became certified crop advisor (CCA) in Sep. 2018, and is also serving as an Associate Editor for Soil Science Society of America Journal since Jan. 2022 and Crop, Forage & Turfgrass Management journal since Jan. 2021. Dr. Parvej has been working on developing/improving fertilizer recommendations and use efficiency, increasing crop yield and profit, improving soil health, reducing off-site impacts, and building resiliency in agriculture through integrated crop management practices and understanding site-specific soil fertility, nutrient stratification and uptake dynamics, soil and tissue testing, 4R nutrient stewardship, crop sensing, soil management, environmental, and yield liming factors, and yield goal. He will be working on evaluating water and nutrient use efficiencies of Japonica rice diversity panel by using Δ13C and Δ15N labeled stable isotope, respectively for the Crisp-Rice project. Dr. Parvej received around $1.8 million research grant as PI, $10.6 million as Co-PI, and $0.7 million as project manager. He also received around $170,000 financial and numerous in-kind supports from different ag industrials. He has presented his research results in many venues including 295 publications (25 refereed journal articles, 3 books/book chapters, 2 theses, 69 abstracts, 6 refereed extension articles, 80 extension articles, 27 research reports, 83 mass media) and 163 presentations at scientific (69), extension (69), and grant funding (25) meetings. He was awarded 1st and 5th places at ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting, three 1st places at ASA Southern Branch Meeting, and 2nd place at Gamma Sigma Delta Meeting. Recently, two of his articles were awarded as 2021 Outstanding Paper in Crop Science and 2020 Outstanding Paper in Crop, Forage & Turfgrass Management journals.

Brenda Tubana

Brenda Tubana is a Professor of Soil Fertility at the School of Plant, Environmental, and Soil Sciences, LSU AgCenter and will be developing climate-smart management practices specifically on precision management of nitrogen through the implementation of remote sensing and N-rich strip. She will also evaluate the effect of enhancing rice silicon nutrition on alleviating stress through the application of silicon fertilizer and silica-solubilizing bacteria inoculates. You can also view her work on Soil Fertility here.

Michael Deliberto

Michael Deliberto is an Associate Professor and the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation Endowed Professor in Agricultural Policy within the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at the LSU AgCenter in Baton Rouge, LA. Dr. Deliberto has a research, teaching, and extension appointment where he applies production economic and applied farm management principles to corn, cotton, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, and wheat crops produced in Louisiana.In addition, Dr. Deliberto evaluates risk management strategies and agricultural policy issues relative to the domestic farm sector. Working on the CRISP-RICE project, Dr. Deliberto will evaluate the profitability of alternative rice production systems under risk. Additionally, the economic and environmental aspects of alternative management practices will be evaluated per production system.

Karthikeyan (Karthi) Raghupathy

Raghupathy Karthikeyan (Karthi) will be modeling environmental impacts on rice production.

Raja Reddy

Raja Reddy will be screening rice diversity for early-stage low temperature and drought tolerance; screening the rice panel for eCO2 responsiveness for early-stage vigor; identifying genetic loci that confer multiple stress tolerance; and elucidating physiological and biochemical mechanisms associated with interactive stress tolerance. You can also view his work at the Soil Plant Atmosphere Research Facility here.

Young-Ki Jo

Young-Ki Jo will implement the new findings from this project to rice stakeholders and end-users in Texas. He will play a key role in improving and updating his current extension activities for rice disease remediation and IPM programs.

Manas Ranjan Gartia

Manas Ranjan Gartia is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at LSU. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2013 and joined LSU as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in 2015. Dr. Gartia’s group has recently developed high-resolution Raman microscopy-based analytical methods for spatial lipidomics imaging. The developed approach will be used to study lipid and metabolomic changes in plant cells and tissues in response to different stresses (salt, water, drought). He has published over 100 journal and conference papers as well as 8 patents (issued/pending). Dr. Gartia is the recipient of several awards, including the NSF CAREER Award in 2021, LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award in 2017, Outstanding Research Achievement award (best PhD) from the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois in 2014, Vodafone Wireless Innovation Award in 2013, Nokia Sensing XChallenge distinguished award in 2013, and Sargent & Lundy LLC fellowship in 2009. His work on colorimetric nano-plasmonic sensors and mobile phone water nano-sensors was featured in Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Wired Magazine, The Huffington Post, and exhibited at the Hewitt Cooper Museum (part of the Smithsonian) in NY. His recent work on breast cancer gene detection using a smartphone was also highlighted by local TV channels such as WBRZ, WAFB, LPB, and the local newspaper The Advocate.

Mark Schafer

Mark Schafer is an assciate professor of sociology. He has a split appointment with the LSU AgCenter and LSU since 1999, and currently serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in both the majority and minority Departments: Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness and Sociology. Mark’s early research focused on education and international development and more recently his research has focused on science & technology studies, and he has used both qualitative and quantitative approaches. For the CRISP-Rice project, Mark and Naduni Jayasinghe (his PhD student) plan to employ a mixed-methods approach to understanding a range of factors that might facilitate or hinder the adoption of climate resilient varieties by growers in the southern rice-growing regions of the United States.

Raju Bheemanahalli

Raju Bheemanahalli, Assistant Research Professor in the Plant and Soil Sciences Department at Mississippi State University. As a multidisciplinary scientist with extensive research experience in national and international settings, his research focused on understanding how crops respond to stressors and management at various stages of development. His research provides traits, stress-tolerant donors, and advanced phenotyping tools to breeders to develop climate-smart crops. His research findings were documented in 50 peer-reviewed journal articles (~4.5 IF/pub), two book chapters, and published >100 abstracts. He received various awards from national and international authorities, such as the Southern Branch-American Society of Agronomy Early Career Research Award, Outstanding Early Career Agriculture Scientist Award, and Young Scientist of the Year by the Indian Society of Plant Physiology. He was awarded a gold medal during his Ph.D. for his academic excellence in Crop Physiology. Beyond his research contributions, he actively serves on the editorial boards of numerous international journals.

With his 15 years of specialization in rice physiology and genetics, he plays a pivotal role in identifying traits, donors, and genetic loci associated with stress tolerance in the CRISP Rice project.

Ronnie Levy

Ronnie Levy is an associate professor for the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana’s State Rice Specialist. With his connections and expertise in Louisiana Rice his role in the CRISP- Rice project will be extension focused.

Supratik Mukhopadhyay

Supratik Mukhopadhyay is full Professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) at the Center for Computation and Technology. Prof. Mukhopadhyay led the DeepDrug team (DeepDrug(lsu.edu)) for automated drug discovery using Artificial Intelligence to the semifinals of AI XPRIZE (among 147 teams worldwide), the world’s top competition for using AI for solving moonshot challenges (DeepDrug| AI XPRIZE). Combination therapy discovered by the DeepDrug Artificial Intelligence Platform for COVID-19 is undergoing human studies at the Riverside University Health System, California (RiversideUniversity Health System Medical Center, Skymount Medical Begin U.S. ClinicalTrial for COVID-19 Oral Therapeutics Discovered Using Artificial Intelligence |County of Riverside (rivco.org)) and in Ukraine. It took 13 months from inception to human studies, which is one of the fastest in the pharmaceutical world for a combination therapy. It has recently been approved for human trials by MHRA in the United Kingdom (SkymountMedical Receives UK MHRA Approval to Test New (globenewswire.com)). DeepDrug is world’s only AI platform to discover a nutraceutical and bring it to market (Home - Inhibinol). Apart from Drug Discovery, Prof. Mukhopadhyay has worked on AI for agriculture, education, port and supply chain security, satellite image understanding, video and image analytics, design of intelligent buildings and transportation systems, wildfire prediction and detection, conservation of endangered species, intelligent cyber-physical-human systems, etc. His DeepSat framework for satellite imagery understanding formed the basis of NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) (see DeepSAT: A Deep Learning Approach to Tree-Cover Delineation in 1-m NAIP Imagery for the Continental United States - NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)). In the last 14 years, Prof. Mukhopadhyay has received more than $9 million in research grants. His research has been funded by the NSF, DARPA, ARO, ONR, NGA, NASA, DOE, USDOT, NRL, USDA, state agencies, and private industry. Prof. Mukhopadhyay has published around 125 refereed publications in reputed journals and conferences. He has been awarded 3 US Patents and has 8 US patents pending. He has received numerous awards for his research. He cofounded a startup Ailectric for commercializing his research on sound, video, and image analytics (Ailectric | Home | Artificial Intelligence | Deep Learning). He serves as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing letters and has served in the program committees of AAAI. Dr. Mukhopadhyay will use AI to develop climate smart rice varieties in this project.

Christian De Guzman

Christian De Guzman is currently an Assistant Professor and Rice Breeder at the University of Arkansas Rice Research Station in Stuttgart Arkansas. He received his Ph.D. degree in 2016 at the Louisiana State University investigating the genetics of male sterility in hybrid rice. Dr. De Guzman has extensive experience in applied plant breeding starting as a corn breeder in 2007 and his graduate experience in rice genetics at the LSU Agcenter from 2011-2016. Prior to his current role, he was the Rice Breeder and Rice Research Fellow at Southeast Missouri State University from 2016 to 2020 and has worked on the development of long and medium grain rice in the Bootheel region. His current research focus is on breeding for conventional and herbicide tolerant (Clearfield and Provisia) long grain and aromatic rice adapted to the U.S. mid-south conditions. His research interests include developing rice varieties with abiotic stress tolerance such as heat and drought and improving the grain and cooking quality. He received the John White Outstanding Team Award in Rice Breeding given by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture for his contribution in developing rice varieties for Arkansas.

Xin-Gen (Shane) Zhou

Xin-Gen (Shane) Zhou is a Professor of Plant Pathology at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at Beaumont. He received his PhD degree in Plant Pathology from Oklahoma State University in 2000. Dr. Zhou’s expertise and research focus are in the areas of biology, epidemiology, and integrated management of economically important diseases in rice, including organic rice. His research involves the evaluation, development, and utilization of effective fungicides, improved genetic host resistance, beneficial microbes (microbiomes), and innovative tools such as UAV remote sensing for disease management. He has been the principal or co-principal investigator for more than 60 externally funded research projects, amounting to a total of over $17.8 million. He has authored a cumulative total of 670 publications, including 83 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has delivered 480 oral and poster presentations, including 82 invited talks at national and international meetings. Dr. Zhou has been a senior editor of four prestigious scientific journals, including Plant Disease. He has also been invited to serve as a grant review panelist for six national and international competitive grants. In addition, he serves on the USDA ARS National Rice Plant Germplasm Committee where he provides disease-related advice regarding the use of US rice germplasm. Dr. Zhou has served as chair and member of the Integrated Disease Management Committee and various other committees within the American Phytopathological Society. He also served as the chair of the Plant Protection Panel at the Rice Technical Working Group Conference. Dr. Zhou’s role in the CRISP program will be screening and identifying rice inbred and hybrid varieties and breeding lines resistant against kernel smut in the greenhouse and field; characterizing the virulence and genetic diversity and population structure of the kernel smut fungal population across the US; screening and identifying effective fungicide seed treatment for control of kernel smut; evaluating and developing effective fungicides and optimum application timing for control of kernel smut in the field.

Jai Rohila

Jai Rohila is a USDA-ARS scientist at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center, Stuttgart, Arkansas. His current research interests are to discover water and heat- stress tolerant rice germplasm, traits, QTL/genes/alleles for use in rice breeding programs and for making rice cultivation a profitable and sustainable industry under changing climate. Prior to the USDA-ARS, he worked at South Dakota State University, Penn State University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Cornell University. Jai has long experience of working and making significant contributions in basic and applied aspects of abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. His contributions are widely recognized by the scientific community. He received Faculty Award for Excellence in Global Research at South Dakota State University and Excellence in Environmental Efforts at USDA-ARS. Jai was President of the Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society-SDSU chapter. Jai has an excellent track record of funding his research programs through extramural funding and competitive grants bringing over million dollars and hosting several visiting scientists from multiple countries. In his free time Jai serves on grant panels, USDA-ARS panels, and editorial boards of peer reviewed scientific journals.

Jong Hyun Ham

Jong Hyun Ham received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from Korea University, Seoul, South Korea, in Agricultural Biology and Plant Pathology, and his Ph.D. degree in molecular plant pathology from Cornell University. During his post-doctoral periods in the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Ohio State University, he studied plant-microbe interactions to understand how plant pathogenic bacteria suppress plant defense systems causing diseases. Since Dr. Ham joined LSU in 2007, he has developed research programs on three major topics, 1) virulence mechanism of the plant pathogenic bacterium Burkholderia glumae causing bacterial panicle blight in rice, 2) rice genetics and genomics for the disease resistance to bacterial panicle blight and sheath blight, and 3) development of innovative materials and practices that promote broad-spectrum disease resistance and growth of rice and soybean for more sustainable crop production. Dr. Ham’s group identified new bacterial genes essential for pathogenic behaviors of bacteria to cause disease in rice and developed novel biotic materials that promote growth and disease resistance of rice and soybean. Dr. Ham has made more than 150 publications including peer-reviewed research articles and conference papers and abstracts. With these research achievements, he received the F. Avalon Daggett professorship in 2021 as well as the Tifton Team Research Award and the Tiger Athlete Foundation Teaching Award in 2015. Dr. Ham’s role in the CRISP program will be characterizing the rice genome sequences associated with disease resistance to bacterial panicle blight through employment of new high-throughput analysis techniques, such as QTL-seq and RNA-seq; characterizing the mechanism of disease suppression caused by a bacterial agent NA2, a novel biotic material discovered by Dr. Ham’s group, focusing on rice defense responses to the agent and rice genes associated with the action of the agent; and developing new disease management strategies through optimization of application condition for NA2 regarding application timing, dosage, and methods, as well as combinatorial effects with commercial fungicides.

Tri Setiyono

Tri Setiyono is an assistant professor in the School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences, Louisiana State University conducting research on digital agriculture applications to enhance resiliency of agronomic crop production in Louisiana. In CRISP-Rice project, Dr. Setiyono will implement digital agriculture technology including Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) remote sensing, proximal surface sensing using active sensors, artificial intelligence, and applied Geographic Information System (GIS) to support research activities on nitrogen use efficiency in rice, monitoring abiotic and biotic stresses in rice, and supporting high throughput phenotyping for rice variety development.

Michael Stout

Michael Stout is Professor and Head of the Department of Entomology in the LSU AgCenter. His academic interests include plant-insect interactions, host-plant resistance, induced plant responses, and integrated management of insect pests of rice. Dr. Stout has conducted research on plant-insect interactions in rice for over 25 years. Dr. Stout’s objectives for the CRISP-Rice project include the development and dissemination of a management program for stem borers that is centered on the use of resistant varieties and exploration of the linkages between soil health and rice resistance/tolerance to insect pests. His research and extension efforts will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Blake Wilson.