2022-2023 Annual Report

Teamwork makes the dream work, and NYSIPM is building an award-winning team that embraces inclusivity, champions collaboration and leverages world class research to bring safe and effective strategies for managing pests that damage crops, infest our schools, harm our landscapes, contaminate our food and living spaces and pose risks to human health. Our dream team continued to grow in 2022, and all of New York's 20 million residents will benefit from their expertise, enthusiasm, extension and outreach.

Michele has served the Cornell AgriTech campus community for more than two decades. She provides essential oversight of NYSIPM’s financial transactions and plays an integral part in preparing program budgets, opening and closing award accounts, processing transactions and ensuring compliance and monitoring.

Diana assesses the effects of key chemical, biological and physical stressors on terrestrial organisms in agricultural and urban systems, with an emphasis on pollinators, beneficial arthropods and native plants. Her work is used to develop and improve best management practices to reduce risks associated with pest management. Diana also oversees efforts to revamp NYSIPM’s Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) including revising the current model, maintaining the pesticide database and expanding it to generate and include efficacy data and other risk parameters particularly for those products currently registered in New York.

Anna develops research-based, sustainable IPM strategies and increases farmer and producer engagement through extension and outreach. She holds bachelor’s degrees in biology and music from the University of Maryland, and a doctorate in Plant Pathology and Plant Microbe Biology from Cornell University, where she worked with Professor Kerik Cox on research and extension efforts focused on investigating fire blight and identifying sustainable management solutions.