Dr. Ines Hanrahan, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission (WTFRC). She provides administrative leadership to the organization, oversight of the WTFRC staff, and contributes to strategic planning for the WTFRC. Ines strives to ensure all funding is geared towards investments in industry priority areas to enable increased productivity, improved product quality and to help growers stay economically viable in a globally competitive marketplace. She is committed to fostering vibrant public-private partnerships with tree fruit scientists worldwide, is highly dedicated to connecting with the next generation of industry professionals, both as a mentor and as an industry leader, and to setting a positive example for an increasingly diverse global work force. Hanrahan’s interest in farming is not only part of her roots, education, and work. Her family owns and operates a commercial tree fruit orchard in the Yakima valley that produces cherries, pears and apples.
Robert Brueggeman was born and grew up outside of Cheney, Washington. He received his BS in Genetics and Cell Biology (1998), MS in Crop Sciences (2004) and PhD in Crop Sciences (2009) from Washington State University. He joined the Department of Plant Pathology at North Dakota State University in 2010 as an assistant professor and started his research program focusing on barley pathology and the molecular genetics underlying host pathogen interactions. In 2018, he was named the Dr. Charles J. Mode Endowed Professor of Genomics Research at NDSU. In 2019 he joined the WSU Department of Crops and Soil Sciences as the barley breeder and Nilan endowed chair of barley research and education. He continued his basic research focused on host-pathogen genetic interactions and began investigating the genetic and genomic underlying end use quality with a focus on translating this knowledge to the barley breeding program.
Juliet M. Marshall is the Associate Director of the Idaho Ag Experiment Station and a Research Professor of Cereals Agronomy and Pathology at the University of Idaho, in the Department of Plant Sciences, joining the UI faculty in 2004. With 33 years of cereals experience in southern Idaho at both the Aberdeen Research and Extension Center (starting in 1992) and the Idaho Falls R&E Center, Juliet’s responsibilities include the University’s cereal variety trials, research in cereal pathology, product testing, and fertility for end-use quality. Current areas of research emphasis include host resistance and integrated control tactics for FHB, stripe rust, dwarf bunt, and cereal cyst nematode. Dr. Marshall has been the recipient of the Potlatch Joe Anderson Wheat Agronomy Endowment since its establishment in 2013 by the Idaho Wheat Commission and received the Idaho Barley Commission’s Service Award in 2016. Dr. Marshall served as Department Head (Unit Leader) for Plant Sciences for four years prior to appointment as Associate Director of the IAES, assisting the Director with crops research at the experiment stations.
Juliet’s degrees were earned at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, (Ph.D. 1992), and University of Delaware, (M.S. 1988 and B.S. 1986). She is an active member of the Agronomy Society of America, the Australasian Plant Pathology Society and the American Phytopathological Society (APS). Juliet has served in numerous roles within APS, including APS Pacific Division President in 2010, and is currently serving as a Senior Editor for APS Press. Service activities include WERA-97, Western Wheat Workers, Pacific Northwest Wheat Quality Council, International Smut Workers, the US Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative and elected member of the National Barley Improvement Committee.
Juliet has served on various AFRI Review Panels, including the USDA-ARS AFRI Plant Biosecurity Review Panel, June – October, 2009, which led to participation as an Expert Consultant for Homeland Security AgroTerrorism Exercise. A mock stripe rust epidemic on wheat was simulated in May of 2015 for eastern Idaho’s homeland security mobile response unit.
