Graduate students (Master)
Gustavo Silva
Gustavo was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil and he has been interested in plants from a young age. He earned a degree in Agronomy at Western Kentucky University in 2020 where he discovered the issues around weed control and herbicide resistant biotypes. He is now pursuing a Master’s degree in weed science at Texas A&M University. Gustavo is researching cover crops and their interactions with weeds as a way to better understand the weed-suppressing properties of cover crops. He plans to work as an agronomic researcher after he graduates. In his free time Gustavo enjoys watching and playing soccer, as well as caring for his own plants.
Isidor Ceperkovic
Isidor Ceperkovic was born and raised in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia. He graduated from the University of Belgrade, Department for Phytomedicine, where he became interested in weed science. In 2018, Isidor enrolled in a Master’s studies program at the University of Belgrade, Department for Agriculture. He did two 6 month internships at the University of Nebraska, at the Pesticide Application Technology Laboratory in North Platte, NE. Isidor started his Master’s studies at the Texas A&M University in January 2020.
Mckenzie Barth
McKenzie grew up on a small wheat and soybean farm in central Minnesota and became interested in weed science during a crop scouting internship after her freshman year of college. She will complete her Bachelor’s degrees in Plant Science and Agricultural Communication and Marketing from the University of Minnesota in May 2020. McKenzie will be studying organic weed control in cotton at Texas A&M beginning in the Summer of 2020.
Graduate students (Ph.D.)
Andrew Osborne
Andrew is a Ph.D. student in Agronomy. He earned his undergraduate degree in Anthropology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After spending some time working on vegetation control of railroad rights-of-way, he got his Master’s degree in Horticulture and Crop Science (specializing in weed science) from The Ohio State University investigating the impact industrial herbicide applications have on the weed species diversity of railroad rights-of-way. His current research focuses on the control, biology, and ecology of Poa annua in managed turfgrass systems. After completion of his Ph.D., he is hoping to further his turfgrass career either through academia or industry.
Aniruddha Maity
Aniruddha, nicknamed as Maity, is working on diversity for the seed morpho-physiological, and plant vegetative and reproductive traits in Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) in the light of herbicide resistance, expected climate change scenario and genetic mechanisms involved for control of the traits. Maity plans to continue his career in academia.
Bishwa Sapkota
Bishwa is a Ph.D. student in Agronomy (minor in Remote Sensing). He earned his undergraduate degree in Forest and Plant science from Tribhuvan University, Nepal and completed his Master in Forest and
Environmental Resources (concentration: Geospatial Sciences) from University of Arkansas, Monticello, Arkansas. He worked as a GIS Analyst for two years before he joined his master program. His Ph.D. research mainly include the use of advanced machine learning algorithms for several purposes, including digital image-based detection and assessment of various weeds in different crops scenarios and herbicide drift injury evaluation on different crops. After completion of his Ph.D., he is hoping to find a career in academia.
Chengsong Hu
Chengsong is from a coastal city in Zhejiang Province, China. He finished his undergraduate studies in Zhejiang University, double majored in horticulture and business administration. Chengsong’s Master’s degree was completed in The Ohio State University in horticulture and crop science. After the completion of Master’s degree, he worked for half a year in a local specialty vegetable farm and later joined The Ohio State University as a research associate, responsible for the planning, design, execution and control of experiments on biology and management of weeds in crops grown in Ohio. During that time, he developed a strong interest in computer vison and robotics for precision weed management and gained a bachelor’s degree in computer science remotely from Oregon State University. He is now a PhD student in Dr. Muthu’s lab in Texas A&M University, developing artificial intelligence and robotic tools for precision weed management.
Matthew Kutugata
Matthew grew up in Texas and attended the University of Texas at Austin where he completed his bachelors in geography. After graduating, he worked on farms, with non-profits, and as a park ranger in the U.S. and abroad. He is finishing up his master’s at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where he uses digital image analysis and machine learning to evaluate cover crops, monitor cash crops, and track wildlife in agricultural landscapes. He will start at Texas A&M in the summer of 2020 where he hopes to continue his work of integrating computer vision and remote sensing to understand complex agricultural systems.
Sarah Kezar
Sarah developed her interest in agriculture growing up Goshen, Indiana by helping her dad farm alfalfa in the summer, showing beef steers, and competing in barrel racing. She found her true passion for Plant Science and research while an Undergraduate at Oklahoma State University. Continuing to a Master’s at Oklahoma State University, set to finish in May 2020, she studied plant physiology by researching the challenges associated with producing soybean in western Oklahoma and how to measure the response to those conditions. This stemmed an interest in weed science and lead to pursing a PhD program at Texas A&M where she will evaluate tactics and programs to minimize Palmer amaranth seedbank addition in cotton production systems. Sarah is looking forward to this next chapter and exchanging Go Pokes for Gig ‘Em!
Shilpa Singh
Shilpa is from Karnal, India. She has an undergraduate degree in Genetics from Kurukshetra University, India. She pursued her Master’s degree in Cell and Molecular Biology (Major: Weed Science) from University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas. During Masters, her research focus was to understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for EPSPS- and ALS-inhibitor resistant Palmer amaranth populations. After completion of her Master’s, she worked as a Research Assistant with Dr. Muthu Bagavathiannan on resistance profiling as well as investigating resistance conferring molecular mechanisms in different weed species, specially, Palmer amaranth, tall water hemp, and ragweed parthenium. Currently, she is a PhD student and her research is to evaluate the potential of PtxD-phosphite as a weed control system in cotton.
Usha Rani Pedireddi
Usha Rani Pedireddi is from Vizianagaram, India. She completed her undergraduate degree in agriculture sciences from Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad. Usha pursued her master degree from the same university in the discipline of Seed Science and Technology. After completion of her master’s, she joined as Agricultural Research Scientist (ARS) at ICAR- Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. She worked there for about five years before joining her PhD at Texas A&M University. Currently, she is a PhD Student in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, TAMU and her research focus is characterization of crop-wild gene flow in sorghum species complex.
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Vanaja Kankarla
Vanaja is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Texas A & M University, responsible for Project/program management; research planning, design and implementation; student mentoring; coordinating multi-state projects and activities She was born and brought up in India studying Agricultural Sciences. She earned her Masters from Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN and a Doctoral degree from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. Her research focus has been on Environmental impacts of brackish groundwater and reverse osmosis concentrates for food and forage crop production in arid environments. She intends to be in academia in future.
Staff
Daniel Hathcoat
Daniel is a Texas native raised in the northeast portion of the state in a region rich with both dairy and ranching history. He attended Texas A&M University-Commerce for both his B.S. and M.S degrees in Agriculture. Following his graduation in 2007, he obtained a position at Texas A&M with AgriLife Extension where he worked as the Program Specialist for the Small Grains and Cool-Season Oilseeds program helping in all areas of research for the crops of wheat, oats, barley and canola. In 2018, Daniel transitioned to his current role with AgriLife Research as Research Specialist in the Weed Science program under Dr. Muthu Bagavathiannan where he continues to assist in all areas of weed science research conducted by this program. In his free time, Daniel enjoys spending time with his wife (Erica) and kids (Colin and Sadie) and fishing whenever the opportunity arises.
Kathryn Kehlenbeck
Kathryn grew up in Millican, Texas just 20 miles south of College Station. She attended A&M for her undergraduate where she earned a Bachelors of Science in Plant and Environmental Soil Science with an emphasis in soil and water. While at A&M she was in the Corps of Cadets and held leadership positions in the organization. After graduation, Kathryn worked as a special education aide at an elementary school before starting in the weed science department in the fall of 2019. Kathryn likes to hike and raise her chickens and border collie pups in her free time.
Former Graduate Students
Cynthia Sias
Cynthia was born in El Paso, Texas where she found her passion for agriculture working
mostly with pecans and vegetables. She pursued her undergraduate degree at
Cornell University where she further developed her understanding in small farm
vegetable operations and developed an interest in row crop operations. She then
decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Agronomy at Texas A&M to fulfill her
life-long dream of being a Fightin’ Texas Aggie. She is set to finish her
Master’s degree in May 2020. Her research focus has been focused on
understanding interspecific hybridization between Sorghum bicolor and Sorghum
halepense. After graduation she will attend Virginia Tech to pursue her PhD in
weed science. She hopes to spread her love for agriculture and music everywhere
she goes.
Spencer Samuelson
Spencer was raised in Cornish, Utah, a small dairy community along the Utah-Idaho border in the beautiful Cache Valley. His undergraduate studies were split between Utah State University and Brigham Young University-Idaho, with a major in Rangeland Ecology. Spencers Master’s degree was
completed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Agronomy. Currently He is a PhD candidate with a
projected graduation in May 2020. His research focus at Texas A&M University has been on evaluating suitable cover crop species for weed suppression, and soil moisture management; he also
has an organic weed management component to the research as well. After graduation he would like to have fun and work in either university extension or industry.