People
Staff
Dr Tania Brenes-Arguedas
Tania is a plant ecologist and biostatistician. Before joining QBE she worked on a range of research and consultancy positions in South, Central and North America. Tania is the Associate Director for the Western Plant Diagnostic Network and the NPDN National Coordinator, responsible for implementation of management actions approved by the NPDN Executive Committee. In her work with WPDN/NPDN Tania interacts with plant diagnosticians across the USA and US Pacific territories, and state and federal phytosanitary regulators. Tania is also the senior analyst in QBE and contributes her analytical skills to projects on HLB and pest exclusion as well as serving on the DATOC expert panel.
Brianna McGuire
Brianna's background is in environmental horticulture and plant pathology. In QBE she manages a large, multi-PI project with the California Department of Food and Agriculture in which we are helping to analyze and improve approaches for detection of exotic pests and several long-running programs for pest and disease management. As well as managing that project Brianna contributes her expertise in data analysis to our work on HLB and disease management in grapes. She is a member of the DATOC expert panel for HLB in California.
Dr Sandra Olkowski
Sandra's experience in disease surveillance covers a wide range of systems from human and plant health including dengue, HLB and Pierce's Disease. Sandra is part of the analytical team working on the CDFA project aimed at improving detection of exotic pests. In addition to data analysis tasks associated with that project, Sandra also provides project management support and is active in QBE mentoring graduate and undergraduate students.
Research students
Current Graduate Student Researchers
Kaity Coleman
Kaity's research is centered on the theme of information. She is working on a USDA-NIFA funded project, led by Prof Gitta Coaker, looking at sources of innate resistance to Liberibacter (the cause of HLB) in citrus. She is also working on studies of how actions taken on the basis of thresholds change the dynamics of disease, and the information capacity of plant pathogen recognition systems.
Alec Schmidt
Alec is a PhD student in the Graduate Group in Epidemiology. His research is split between QBE and working with Dr. Miriam Nuño in the UC Davis School of Public Health. In QBE, Alec is studying the long term area-wide management program for Glassy Winged Sharpshooter (the vector for strains of Xyllela fastidiosa causing Pierce's Disease) in the southern San Joaquin Valley. His work uses a range of geographic, statistical, and mathematical approaches to understand the complex dynamics of the vector population.
Sam Brinker
Sam Brinker is a PhD student in the Graduate Group in Epidemiology. Sam's research is focused on the roles of information and misinformation in epidemiology and disease surveillance. In addition to his theoretical work he is developing a risk-based survey for assessment of the presence of branched Broomrape, an invasive parasitic weed, in California summer cropping land, for the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Victor Alves
Victor is a PhD student in the Plant Pathology Graduate Group. Victor is developing analytical approaches and data displays to help decision makers improve evidence-based decision making in large disease and pest management programs. Much of the work is connected with citrus HLB and other regulated pests/pathogens of citrus, but also includes a range of other problems such as the potential range of Black Fig Fly, a recent arrival in California.
Elias Bunting (Plant Pathology)
Elias is a PhD student in the Plant Pathology Graduate Group. Elias has broad interests in regulatory decision making and risk evaluation. He is currently developing a project with the California Department of Fisheries and Wildlife to carry out a comprehensive Pest Risk Assessment (PRA) for legal cannabis production. This project anticipates some regulated legal trade in cannabis and related products among states which have legalized cannabis. Interstate trade raises questions about risks associated with both import and export of products across state lines.
Evan Pellerin (Plant Pathology)
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Evan is a PhD student in the Plant Pathology Graduate Group and a phytosanitary specialist with Bayer in their vegetable seeds business. Evan is researching the use of High Throughput Sequencing as a diagnostic platform for advanced seed health production systems. This initiative by the industry is developing with one eye on the evolving international agenda on regulating seed trade.
Magali Ibañez (Plant Pathology)
Magali will join QBE in time for Fall Quarter 2024. Magali is a diagnostic scientist with the Horticultural Plant Pathology Laboratory in Bella Vista, Argentina. Magali will be studying viruses of concern in protected vegetable production, with a focus on Tobamo viruses such as tomato brown rugose fruit virus. Magali will be splitting her time between QBE and the Gilbertson lab at UC Davis.
Former Graduate Student Researchers
Dr Sara Garcia Figuera
Sara is studied the governance system for the management of HLB in California using a Socio-Ecological Systems Framework. She is now an agricultural policy consultant based in Spain.
Dr Robin Choudhury
Robin studied the epidemiology of downy mildew (caused by Perenospora effusa) on salad spinach in the Salinas Valley, focusing on statistical analysis of data from spore samplers. Robin is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley
The QBE group PI
Hello. I'm Neil McRoberts, a member of faculty in the Plant Pathology Department at UC Davis and a researcher in the California Agriculture Experiment Station. I grew up in the east of Scotland, studied at the University of Edinburgh, and worked in Scotland for 20 years as a researcher and teacher before moving to UC Davis in 2010.
In establishing QBE I wanted to create an interdisciplinary environment for studying the interaction between people and plant diseases, one where we use what we learn from research to solve plant disease problems in the real world. We work closely with a wide range of stakeholders in California and elsewhere. A strong element of our work is on strategic (or preventative) plant disease management, so we interact a lot with state and federal regulatory agencies, and carry out research aimed at improving their ability to provide effective regulatory approaches for excluding or eradicating diseases.
In addition to leading QBE I am also an affiliate adviser in the UC statewide IPM program, and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior - a fantastic interdisciplinary research group run by Prof Mark Lubell, with whom I collaborate on decision-making and cooperation problems in agriculture.