Southern IPM Center Staff

No one person can have all of the expertise and skills needed for the diverse activities of a regional center. These activities include general management, grants management, overall IPM field and technology knowledge, pesticide regulation and use experience, and telecommunications expertise. We have chosen to partition these responsibilities among four positions, not all full-time within the Center, but all with full-time responsibilities to Center-related activities.

PI and Director: Jim VanKirk
Jim is responsible for overall leadership of the Center and management of competitive grants programs. He is also Associate Director of the NSF Center for IPM (CIPM). Jim worked as Implementation Specialist with the New York IPM Program for many years, with experience in fruit, vegetable, field crop and livestock IPM. In 1996 he became the first Regional IPM Facilitator. He helped found the Northeastern Pest Management Center and was a Director of the Northeastern IPM Center before joining SRIPMC in 2004.

Associate Director - Regulatory Affairs: Steve Toth
Steve Toth is an Extension Entomologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he has been a member of the Entomology Department faculty since 1988. Since 2003, Steve has served as Associate Director of the Southern Region Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Center, where he assists the director, coordinates regional responses to federal regulatory information requests, and serves a liaison with other IPM-related programs (e.g., IR-4, PSEP). In April 2008, he was appointed the State IPM Coordinator for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

Editor/Writer: Rosemary Hallberg
Rosemary writes, edits, and designs the quarterly newsletters; copy-edits all reports; prepares press releases and success stories for public release; compiles Center updates and handouts for various meetings; and keeps the blog and news updated. She is also responsible for developing positive relationships with agricultural and environmental news reporters. She is certified in environmental education and has written several stories that have appeared in trade and nature magazines.

Database Programmer: Sandy Sferrazza
Sandy maintains the SRIPMC Web site and database applications, including the SRIPMC proposal and project reporting system. She has worked with the NSF Center for IPM as a programmer for over 6 years.