SIPMC Staff
No one person can have all of the expertise and skills needed for the diverse activities of our center. This is the team that makes it all come together.
Directors
Joe LaForest, Co-Director
Joseph LaForest provides day-to-day leadership of the Center's Early Detection Rapid Response Signature Program. Joe is the IPM Program Coordinator at the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, commonly referred to as “Bugwood,” managing the image database, the BugwoodWiki, and providing training. He has a B.S. in Urban Forestry and graduated from the Ohio State University with two Masters degrees (Entomology and Plant Pathology).
Roger Magarey, Co-Director
Roger Magarey. Ph.D. trained as a plant pathologist, gaining experience with IPM in grapes and citrus. He has been at NC State since 2002 where 12 years was spent as a cooperator with USDA-APHIS, and for the last six years, he worked on the integrated pest information platform (iPiPE) project. Roger received his PhD from Cornell University where he worked on modeling and geographic information systems.
Key Personnel
Tegan Walker, Evaluation Specialist
Tegan manages evaluation and reporting for the Southern region through data collection and analysis, impact reporting, and inter-regional collaboration. This involves compiling resources for grant evaluation, conducting needs assessments, and strengthening regional and inter-regional evaluation systems. She holds a B.S. in Agricultural Economics from Virginia Tech, a Master’s in Agricultural International Development from Texas A&M University, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Education from Auburn University.
Kayla Watson, Communication Director
Kayla facilitates the flow of resources and information in integrated pest management through videos, articles, podcasts, social media, web design, and other communication avenues for the Southern region and its partners. She has a B.S. in Communication Studies from Appalachian State University and a Master's of Communication from North Carolina State University.
Lauren Quevillon, Friends of IPM Program Coordinator
Lauren administers the Friends of IPM Program at the Southern IPM Center. She is a broadly-trained disease ecologist who has been at NC State’s Center for Integrated Pest Management since 2018. Lauren is also the Co-PI of a USDA-APHIS funded plant pest and disease database. She received her PhD in Biology from Pennsylvania State University and her B.A. in Biological Sciences from Cornell University.
Lacey Belanger, Research Assistant
Lacey works with stakeholders to create new and updated Crop Profiles and Pest Management Strategic Plans for the National IPM Database. She holds a B.A. in Biological Sciences with a concentration in business communications from North Carolina State University.
Brian Holderman, IT Analyst/Programmer/Grants Management System Programmer
Brian maintains and updates the Grant Management System, and he has over fifteen years of experience in web design and web application development in programming languages such as Perl, PHP, and Python. His previous work includes developing systems for tracking pest and disease incidents and coding a variety of crop, pest, disease, and yield models.