Julie Dawson
Urban and peri-urban farm enterprises are very diverse in their marketing and management strategies, and she is interested in providing research support for small-scale farm and food enterprises serving regional markets, and community gardens focused on food security. Improving vegetable flavor through breeding is an active collaboration referred to as Seed to Kitchen Collaborative with local farmers, chefs, and breeders.  She welcomes input on research priorities and ideas for projects. If you are interested in participating in research or education projects, please contact Julie!
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James Nienhuis (Emeritus)
The focus of the work in the Nienhuis lab is breeding and genetics of self-pollinated vegetable crops with special emphasis on hot peppers, tomatoes, and snapbeans. Several lines of hot peppers and tomatoes have won All America Selection awards and are available in seed catalogs.  More selections are being made every year.
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Amaya Atucha
Amaya Atucha is an assistant professor in the department of Horticulture and the Fruit Crop Extension Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also the Gottschalk Chair for cranberry research. Her instruction responsibilities include teaching Hort 345 Fruit Crop Production.

Her research program focuses on fruit crop physiology and production of deciduous fruit crops (cranberry, apple, and grapes in particular). Her current research at West Madison ARS focuses on cold hardiness of wine and seedless table grapes, improving fruit quality through cultural practices. A new project will evaluate different mulches on the pest, spotted wing drosophila.  Other demonstration projects include blueberries and tall spindle apples systems.

The goal of her extension program is to deliver up-to-date, research-based information to fruit growers that will lead to improve production practices of fruit crops in Wisconsin.

She earned her B.S. in horticulture from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile) and her Ph.D. in horticulture from Cornell University. Prior to joining UW-Madison she was an assistant professor at Colorado State University in the department of Horticulture.
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Irwin Goldman
The Goldman lab focuses on breeding and genetics of cross-pollinated vegetable crops; primarily carrot, onion, and table beet. The year 2018 marks our 69th year working with these crops, and over these years we have released numerous inbred lines, open pollinated populations, and germplasm for use by breeders throughout the world. Our lab also studies traits of importance in these crops and seeks to find new methods of breeding and genetic improvement. A theme running through our work is the examination of traits of consumer interest, such as health value, color, flavor, shape, and other quality attributes. Our lab is located in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1575 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706. You can obtain more information by writing to Irwin Goldman at ilgoldma@wisc.edu or by calling 608-262-1624.
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Philipp Simon (USDA)
Carrot breeding.
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