As Dean of the Herbert College of Agriculture, I provide leadership for the academic programs, work with statewide constituencies and stakeholders including alumni and various commodity and industry organizations, am a member UTIA's leadership team, represent the College on regional and national committees, and am an advocate for the College with University administration. Having been a major advisor to 9 doctoral candidates and 28 master’s students, half of whom were minority students, I have a strong interest in recruiting underrepresented students into higher education, particularly in the agricultural and natural resources disciplines. My research work as a faculty member focused on abiotic and biotic stress physiology, adaptability of exotic fruit crops, and NASA-sponsored approaches at sustainable food production in space. My research resulted in 41 refereed research publications, 10 book chapters, two editions of an edited book, one monograph, and 123 abstracts, presentations, or proceedings, 23 of which were on institutional research and assessment topics. As an undergraduate and graduate educator, I have taught fourteen different courses and currently co-teach a graduate level Scientific Writing course. In my capacity as a Director of Institutional Research, I served as a consultant to Bethune Cookman College, Bennett College for Women and Southern University at Baton Rouge for SACS, QEP, and learning outcome development. I also served as the Quality Enhancement Plan evaluator for SACS during its on-site visit to University of Central Florida. As a result of these experiences, I have presented on a variety of retention, institutional planning, learning outcomes, and QEP development topics to NACDRAO, SAIR, SEF, and SACS, among others. More recently, I have been an invited speaker for a 2014 Entomology Society symposium on Grand Challenges in Keeping and Fostering Women in Entomology and an invited panel member representing women in academia at the Summit on Women in Agriculture in 2016 at the University of Georgia. In 2019, I was invited to serve as a panelist for the Women in Leadership Higher Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts on the topic of the imposter syndrome and continue to have a passion for encouraging women to seek and attain leadership roles.