Current grant-funded projects:

Climate Stress and Grief: Building Resilience in Farmers and Ranchers Project. I serve as a co-PI on this novel initiative that aims to support farmers, ranchers, and others by providing psychoeducation to help them understand the impacts of unprocessed stress and grief, why farmers and other natural resource professionals are vulnerable, and to collaboratively explore ways to increase their resilience and well-being. The intervention increased producers’ awareness of climate change-related mental health impacts, enabled them to brainstorm strategies to build greater resilience, and provided resources for mental health services and stress management. In 2026, we published a commentary Farmers and Ranchers: The Stress and Anxiety Fueled by Climate Change, and Interventions that Can Help. In 2025, we published the invited manuscript Weather the Storm: Building Resilience in Rural Farming Communities Amid Climate Change, in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. In 2024, we published Understanding and living with climate grief and climate stress for farmers and ranchers.

The team has a suite of funding sources, including the Western Region SARE Professional Development Program, to support a national train-the-trainer program that expands the intervention’s reach. Through an OSU Transdisciplinary Team Building grant, we have expanded the team, created a research agenda, developed a new process model for moderators of climate emotion processing and its impacts on adaptive resilience, and adapted our programming to reach forestry and fisheries.

Recent projects:

• Cultivating Impact with Producer Co-Educators Project. I serve as PI for this professional development project funded by the USDA Western Region SARE Program. The purpose is to support Oregon agricultural educators in partnering with producers as co-educators to plan and design education programs and collaboratively teach other producers. In 2026, a workbook on how to partner with producers as co-educators will be published.
  
• Smallholder Pesticide Risk Reduction Education Program was co-developed through a successful train-the-trainer program with vegetable farmers in Senegal from 2013 to 2016. The resulting scaled-up pesticide risk management reduced the use of highly hazardous pesticides and increased the adoption of protective mitigation practices that minimized exposures. Farmer-centered pesticide risk reduction education in Senegal: A novel, participatory approach was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Extension Education (JIAEE) in 2023 and received an article of the year award in 2024. Planning for Gender Equality: Ensuring Pesticide Educational Programming Protects Women was published the JIAEE 2025 Special Issue.
  
• Increasing the Reach of Integrated Pest Management through Community Partnerships (July 2021). The USDA SARE Program commissioned a post-project impact case study, Redefining Learner-centered Education to Build High Impact IPM Partnerships (June 2024). The Western Region IPM Center wrote an article on this work, Building Community Partnerships to Improve IPM Outcomes (October 2021). The three community-driven partnerships included:
  
  Biologically-based IPM for NE Oregon Cropping Systems with Darrin Walenta (Extension Agronomist), state and local NRCS, NRCS West Technical Support Center, Xerces Society, PlantWorks, and local farmers began in 2017.
  
  Middle Rogue Pesticide Stewardship Partnership (PSP) with Gordon Jones (General Agriculture) and Rick Hilton (Extension Entomologist) at SOREC, Rogue River Watershed Council, Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District, and local stakeholders and growers. See the Middle Rogue PSP Strategic Plan for details about this ongoing work.
  
  Cranberry Pesticide Resistance Prevention Program with Cassie Bouska (General Agriculture), OceanSpray, Oregon Cranberry Association, and local farmers in 2018-2019.