Neil McRoberts
A message from the Executive Director is long overdue. It’s the busiest time of the year for most diagnostic labs– a time when committee work takes a backseat to the real work of diagnosis. The data don’t lie; July and August are always the busiest months for NPDN labs.
The fact that we’re in our busy season means that it has been nearly 18 months since the NPDN National Meeting at UC Davis. In that time new cooperative agreements have been agreed upon with USDA-NIFA, and a lot of effort has been expended in improving our relationships with state and federal regulatory agencies. Thanks are due to Immediate Past Executive Director, Carrie Harmon, who led our efforts with National Plant Board (NPB) colleagues to establish a more collaborative relationship between NPDN and NPB.
From this point, we aim to have NPDN representation at the NPB national meeting and regional meetings every year. During the week of July 31, I will attend NPB’s national meeting as an NPDN representative and introduce our recent work.
Our committees remain occupied with vital activities for the organization, ensuring that NPDN continues to be a resilient success story despite the ever-tightening budget. As a result of the agreed upon program priorities—outlined in the proposal sent to USDA-NIFA—the current cooperative agreements, accreditation, professional development, and regulatory affairs have been particularly active areas of work. A huge thank you to everyone who volunteers time to serve on our committees; your contributions are invaluable.
We recognize the importance for us to make solid progress with accreditation and professional development. The Leadership Team allocated staff funds to two regional centers, and these individuals will focus on meeting our accreditation and professional development objectives. It is my great pleasure to introduce them to you.
New Hires
On August 1, we welcomed Allina Bennett to the network. She coordinates and supports NPDN professional development goals, with special emphasis on integrating programs in LearnUpon in service to the NPDN national committees.
Allina will be based at the University of Florida in the SPDN regional center, where her experience in plant health and molecular diagnostics is useful in supporting the NPDN spring accreditation workshop, UFIT deep sequencing workshop, and developing the UF diagnostic lab’s Core accreditation documentation. To prepare for Allina’s shift into coordinating the national professional development program, NPDN leadership developed a list of priority projects based on feedback from organization committees.
Allina reports to the NPDN Leadership and Professional Development committees and will assist the SPDN regional center with reporting projects for a small portion of her time. You can reach Allina at the SPDN regional lab at 352-392-1795 or allina.bennett@ufl.edu.
We also welcome Stephanie Shea as our new Accreditation Manager. Stephanie received a bachelor’s degree in animal science with a minor in wildlife conservation from the University of Connecticut. She worked as a Laboratory Animal Technician at Yale University in Connecticut, where she was introduced to the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International. Steph became certified as an Assistant Laboratory Animal Technician through the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science to increase her role in maintaining the University’s compliance with AAALAC accreditation and USDA’s Animal Welfare Act and Regulations.
After some time in Connecticut, Stephanie moved to Texas where she received a master’s degree in Range and Wildlife Management from Texas A&M University, researching northern bobwhite helminths. She completed her PhD degree in Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Maine, researching wild turkey diseases using molecular diagnostics. In January 2021, she began working at the university’s Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab with Dr. Alicyn Smart, focusing on molecular diagnostics, accreditation, lab management, and NEPDN regional coordination. She also worked in the Wildlife Disease Genetics lab with Dr. Pauline Kamath.
Stephanie is very excited to transition to full time work at the plant diagnostic lab with the addition of the NPDN Accreditation Manager Role. Stephanie can be reached by email at the NEPDN Regional Center at stephanie.shea@maine.edu
Sustainability
The Leadership Team is engaged in efforts to make NPDN more financially secure. First, we worked with the APS Public Policy Board and by direct communication with some offices in the legislature to make sure the language authorizing additional support for NPDN that was added to the 2018 Farm Bill, is retained in the writing process for the 2024 Farm Bill. That work is important because it means that there is space available to receive the money, should congress decide to appropriate additional funds for us in future.
Secondly, we are working on the appropriation for the coming year. The appropriations process is underway, and while there is an overall move to reduce spending, we are still making efforts to highlight how NPDN’s budget is shrinking because of inflation to the attention of decision makers in the legislature and USDA-NIFA leadership. We are in the process of arranging a meeting with USDA-NIFA leadership in DC for September.
Stories highlighting the positive impact our work has on our stakeholders always helps to raise the profile of NPDN. If you have examples of NPDN’s positive impact, please send them along to your regional center. We can use those good stories in conversation with USDA-NIFA and the legislature.
Finally, I want to express more gratitude to the entire NPDN membership for all that you do to maintain national plant health. The year 2020 was the International Year of Plant Health, which somewhat ironically fell victim to the human disease COVID-19. However, the central message of, “Plant health is human health,” is nonetheless true.
