Meet The Team

Ashley Kuhn

Ashley has been with the Forage Team since 2021. She is responsible for the communications of the UF/IFAS Forage Team. She develops and maintains social media, websites and other communication channels. Ashley also assists on all Extension activities including coordinating  in-service trainings, field days, and Extension Program Development. 

Ashley has developed an online course used for onboarding extension agents. This course consists of 12 modules on specific topics agricultural and natural resource agents can use throughout their career in IFAS. 

Maria Elena Mailhos

María Elena joined the Forage Team in 2022 as an Agricultural Assistant. She coordinates the team's Official Variety Trials, including corn, sorghum and cool season species. María is responsible for communication with the seed industry and leads different field activities. She also helps the Team in logistics, assisting students, supervising interns, coordinating field days and interdisciplinary projects. María obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Agronomy from the National University of Uruguay, where she worked as a Research and Teaching Assistant studying native and improved grasslands ecology and management.

Nicolas Caram

Nicolas is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Agronomy Department, having started his Ph.D. program in Fall 2021, studying the effect of legume proportion in grass pastures on different plant and animal responses. He is from Uruguay and obtained a Fulbright scholarship for studies in the United States. He served as a Research and Teaching Assistant at the University of Florida, with teaching responsibilities for a course entitled Forage Science and Range Management. Nicolas received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Agronomy from the National University in Uruguay. His is a trained grassland ecologist with a research background in foraging behavior, grazing ecology and management, and functional diversity of native grasslands. Nicolas has published several papers in refereed journals from his work in Uruguay and in Florida. 

Google scholar:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZGY5bcMAAAAJ&hl=es

Research gate: 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicolas-Caram

Alejandro Ruden

Alejandro is a researcher in agricultural sciences and a PhD. student in Agronomy at the University of Florida. Since his undergraduate studies at the University of Caldas, Colombia, he has always been interested in the proposal and development of projects with a sustainable approach.

He is totally convinced of the fundamental role of agricultural systems in the solution of social problems such as hunger, inequality and poverty and global concerns such as climate change and loss of natural resources. Alejandro researches through comprehensive management of decision support systems, forage models and socio-economic vulnerability analysis.

His current project aims to analyze and propose strategies to promote integration between crop and livestock systems in Florida as a climate-smart strategy to increase yields, improve soil health and increase farmer incomes. His PhD project will provide technical recommendations for the improvement of extension activities and, on the other hand, a policy document that can help stakeholders to promote a larger scale of integrated systems.

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Research gate:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alejandro-Ruden

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlejandroRuden

Celeste Martinez 

Celeste is from Comayagua, Honduras. She is currently a Master's student with the UF Agronomy department. Her projects aim to assess bermudagrass response to different management strategies such as weed control and planting rates as useful tools to enhance sustainable food production. 

Her research is aligned towards increasing the benefits of grasslands and their role in resilience, adaptation and potential for climate change mitigation while preserving and increasing livelihoods on local and global scales.

Renan Pedro Becker

Renan is a second-year master student in the Agronomy department, having started his master in Summer 2023. His project involves the assessment of new bahiagrass tetraploid lines of the University of Florida forage breeding program. The project consists of the evaluation of aspects of these lines related to the persistence under grazing and low nitrogen fertilization rates, seed production and tolerance to metsulfuron herbicide. He is from Brazil and obtained a Bachelor’s in Agronomy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. During his undergrad he was involved in research trials assessing the impact of grazing management on forage and animal production on cultivated and native pastures.

William Piwowarek

William is a UF Entomology student originally from New Mexico. He graduated as an undergraduate from UF Entomology in fall 2022 and started his master’s degree in the UF entomology department in fall 2024. His master’s research investigates the relationship between invasive mole crickets and their predator, the wasp Larra bicolor, to improve control of mole crickets in pasture, with project components involving UF Entomology, Agronomy, and Engineering.  The major objectives of this project are assessing suitable nectar host plants for the wasp and tracking the wasp with a harmonic radar device to glean useful information on its biology. William has been involved in the Wallau lab as an undergraduate since 2021, helping on various projects, most notably on another combined Agronomy-Entomology project investigating improved plant covers for solar farms, especially those that help conserve pollinators. He has published one entomology paper and has several other articles coming out soon.

​Publication: https://academic.oup.com/jme/article-abstract/61/3/657/7633891

Olivia Centanni

Olivia started her masters degree in agronomy in the fall of 2024. She is studying the effects of fall fertilization on forage production and nutritive value of different warm-season perennial grass species in Florida. She is originally from Lakeland Florida but obtained her undergraduate degree in agriculture from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton Georgia. 

Emanuel Cassol Dall'Agnol

Emanuel is a first-year Ph. D. candidate in the Agronomy Department, having started his Ph. D. program in Summer 2024, studying forage resilience. Emanuel received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Agronomy from the University of Passo Fundo, Brazil. After finishing his master’s degree, he worked with the seed industry in Brazil for a couple years. Emanuel has a background in forage conservation and  management, along with experience working in the industry.

Scholar: 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DqA_1VIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Research Gate: 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emanuel-Dall-Agnol