Panel 1: Adapting Growing Systems, Crop Management, and Benchmarking

Dr. Roberto Lopez’s primary focus is on investigating how photosynthetic light, temperature, and CO₂ influence the physiology, morphology, and development of CEA specialty crops. As a bilingual extension educator, he provides producers with research-based publications, bulletins, production guides, podcasts, webinars, and videos focused on energy-efficient production, some of which are in Spanish.

Bob Jones is co-owner and CEO of The Chef's Garden in Huron Ohio. The Chef's Garden and Farmer Jones Farms is a family owned and operated vegetable farm that grows, packs and ships to restaurants and home consumers throughout the U.S. The farm is managed regeneratively and lives out its mission “To grow exceptional vegetables, care for each other and the land and to inspire a vegetable forward future". The two greatest assets of the farm are our amazing team of people and our healthy soil. Bob and his brother Lee, aka Farmer Lee, have invested their entire lives learning from the land and their father, Bob Sr., whose vision was to grow for flavor and nutrition. Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people and planet continue to be our goal here at the farm. Bob serves on the board of Metabolic Terrain Institute of Health (MTIH). As well, he presented at the MTIH 2024 event. Bob continues to be requested to speak at industry related and health conferences. Most recently he presented for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine at the 2023 Lifestyle Medicine Conference. 

Dr. Melanie Lewis Ivey is an associate professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Ohio State University, Wooster, with responsibility for research, extension and teaching in fruit crop diseases. Lewis Ivey’s research focuses on the development and integration of economical and sustainable practices to reduce plant diseases in small and tree fruit and hops. Lewis Ivey has conducted research in temporal and sub-tropical climates and places a strong emphasis on integrated pest management (IPM) approaches, which can be applied to commercial, home garden and workplace production settings in any environment. Lewis Ivey is also the state Fresh Produce Safety Specialist, with expertise in water quality management.

Dr. Luis Canas is Director of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) International Programs, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Entomology at Ohio State University. Dr. Canas is nationally and internationally recognized as an expert in the management of insect pests that attack plants in controlled environments, with more than 25 years of experience. His research provides applied solutions to problems caused by thrips, whiteflies and mites among others. His areas of expertise include insect management using insecticides and biological control agents, biodemography, insect‐plant interactions.

Dr. Peter Ling is an Associate Professor/Greenhouse Engineer Extension Specialist in the Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering at the Ohio State University. His research focuses on controlled environment plant production and mechanization of growing and harvesting systems.

Dr. Ling has a well-established annual greenhouse engineering extension program. The Greenhouse Management Workshop offered different themes from year to year that has attracted 50-164 attendees every year. Under Dr. Ling’s leadership, The Ohio State University, Rutgers University, and University of Arizona have collaboratively published 52 greenhouse engineering technology learning modules on YouTube with more than 46,000 views.

Dr. Jason Hollick is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at The Ohio State Univeristy (OSU). He obtained a BS in Horticultural and Crop Science (2021) and PhD (2025) from OSU. Dr. Hollick's research is currently focused on improving productivity of greenhouse-grown high-wire tomato using grafting and autonomous environment control in controlled environment agriculture. His other research interests include flower and fruit production in grafted seedless watermelon and the development of ideal management strategies to improve early season yields.