Emerging Plant Disease and Global Food Security
March 23-24, 2016

The Emerging Plant Disease and Global Food Security Chancellors Faculty Excellence Program cluster at NC State will host an international symposium March 23-24, 2016 in Raleigh, to bring together experts that study emerging plant diseases and their arthropod vectors. Managing the threats of emerging diseases that affect agricultural crop plants requires experts in genetics, biology, epidemiology, climate change, metadata analysis, geospatial analytics and global development policy. We will synthesize new developments on emerging plant disease biology and discuss an expanding array of new technologies to gather, analyze, synthesize, and share knowledge about emerging infectious diseases of plants that affect global food security. Four sessions with keynote speakers, a closing panel and posters are planned.

 

March 23, 2016 - Duke Energy Hall Hunt Library Second Floor

 

7:30 - 8:30	Registration
8:30 - 8:45	Welcome Address - by University Chancellor Randy Woodson
8:45 - 9:00	Emerging Plant Disease and Global Food Security - Dr. Jean Ristaino
9:00 - 9:45	Opening Keynote: Food and Civilization - Dr. Nina Fedoroff, Willaman Professor of Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor, Penn State University, Former Science and Technology Adviser to Secretaries of State Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton
9:45-10:15	Coffee Break
10:15 - 11:00	Plenary Session 1: Emerging Pathogens that Threaten Global Food Security. Keynote Speaker: Dr. Christopher Gilligan, Chair of the Cambridge University Strategic Initiative in Global Food Security
11:00 - 11:15	Discussion
11:15 - 11:45	Invited short talk: The role of science and technology in safeguarding U.S. agriculture and facilitating safe trade. Dr. Philip Berger, Executive Director, Center for Plant Health Science and Technology, USDA APHIS
11:45 - 12:00	Discussion
12:00 - 1:00	Provost Warwick Arden Welcome - Chancellors Faculty Excellence Program - Lunch
1:00 - 1:30	Video and poster preview in the Teaching and visualization Lab
1:30 - 2:15	Plenary Session 2: Understanding plant disease management in the context of food systems. Keynote speaker: Dr. Karen Garrett, Preeminence Professor, The Global Food Systems Institute and the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida.
2:15 - 3:00	Discussion
3:00 - 3:30	Invited short talk: Global Earth Observations Based Data Mining Framework for Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) Security, Dr. Raju Vatsavai, Associate Director Center for Geospatial Analytics, NC State
3:30 - 3:45	Discussion
3:45 - 4:00	Coffee break
4:00 - 5:30	Poster session
6:00 - 7:00	Evening Reception at State Club
7:00 - 8:00	Dinner at The State Club
8:00	Dean Linton Welcome remarks and Keynote Address: Monitoring Emerging Diseases: The challenges and the need for a 21st century global surveillance system. Dr. Pamela Anderson, Former Director Agriculture Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and former Director General International Potato Center

 

March 24, 2016 - Duke Energy Hall Hunt Library Second Floor

 

7:30 - 8:30	Registration
8:30 - 9:15	Plenary Session 3: Evolutionary Genomics of Phytophthora infestans, Dr. Michael Martin, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Tronheim Norway
9:15 - 9:30	Discussion
9:30 - 10:00	Invited short talk: Population structure and characterization of viruses associated with Maize lethal necrosis (MLN) in East Africa Dr. Lucy Stewart, Ohio State University, Wooster, OH
10:00 - 10:15	Discussion
10:15 - 10:45	Coffee break
10:45 - 11:30	Plenary Session 4: Drone-ing for Plant Pathogen Highways in the Sky, Keynote Speaker: Dr. David Schmale, Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science, Virginia Tech
11:30 - 11:45	Discussion
11:45 - 12:15	Invited short talk: Transformative ICT technologies are changing the landscape of pathogen identification and diagnostics. Dr. Don Cooper Mobile Assay, Boulder Colorado
12:15 - 12:30	Discussion
12:30 - 1:30	Lunch
1:30 - 2:00	Invited short talk: Plantwise: Getting pest and disease data fresh from the field. Patricia Neenan Kilmartin, Head of Strategic Partnerships - the Americas
2:00 - 2:15	Discussion
2:15 - 4:00	Closing Panel Challenges in Tackling Emerging Diseases in Africa, Moderated by Jean Ristaino
	Emerging Plant Diseases and Feed the Future, Dr. Angela Records, International Agriculture Research Advisor, Bureau of Food Security, USAID, Washington
	Role of the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub in enhancing agricultural productivity in Africa, Dr. Josephine Birungi, Technology Manager, Biosciences East Africa - ILRI Hub, Nairobi Kenya.
	RTI's Food Systems Approach to Reduce Global Hunger, Paul Weisenfeld, Executive Vice President, International Development Group, RTI
4:00 - 5:00	Final reception

 

For further information contact Jean_Ristaino@ncsu.edu