People
Project Staff
Ann Wolf - Co-Director
Ann serves as Executive Director for Iowa Heartland Resource Conservation & Development, based in Des Moines, Iowa. She has over 35 years experience in nonprofit development, community leadership, farm operations and management. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the University of Iowa and is currently enrolled in a Master’s degree program in Nonprofit Leadership and Community Development from the University of Northern Iowa. She also holds professional certifications from Iowa State University and United Way of Central Iowa’s Nonprofit Leadership Institute and has acquired the international high-level designation of Certified Fund-Raising Executive. Ann is recognized locally and nationally as an Iowa woman farmland owner practicing soil conservation, water quality enhancement, natural habitat restoration, and environmental and agricultural sustainability on her 300-acre farm in Iowa.
Dr. Rob Wallace - Co-Director
Rob is an evolutionary epidemiologist based at the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps in St Paul. His research has addressed the evolution and spread of avian and swine influenza, the agroeconomics of Ebola and Zika, and the evolution of infection life history in response to pharmaceuticals. Rob is co-author of Neoliberal Ebola: Modeling Disease Emergence from Finance to Forest and Farming Human Pathogens: Ecological Resilience and Evolutionary Process. He has consulted for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from City University of New York.
Carolyn Rumery Betz - Project Researcher
Carolyn’s career spans 35 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. She retired from the Soil Science Department at the UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences with Emerita status in 2019, with expertise in climate change mitigation and adaptation in dairy production systems in the Midwest. At the DNR, she specialized in lake and stream management and how to reduce polluted runoff and its impacts on water quality. She holds a 2020 Graduate Certificate in Social Innovation and Sustainability Leadership, a M.S. in Land Resources, and a B.S. in Geology and Environmental Studies.
Dr. Serena Stein - Project Researcher
Serena holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Princeton University and has conducted social science research on community health, food systems, agricultural development, and environmental studies in southern Africa, Latin America, and the United States. As a researcher for this project, she is particularly interested in investigating how farmers adopt regenerative practices and undertake COVID- 19 recovery.
Dr. Brian Rumsey - Iowa State Coordinator
Brian is a native Iowan who resides in Cedar Falls. While not a farmer himself, he has diverse agricultural experience, ranging from hybrid corn field work to research on the development of perennial polycultures. He holds a doctorate in environmental history from the University of Kansas and teaches courses on history, sustainability, and related topics at Wartburg College, the University of Northern Iowa, and Hawkeye Community College.
Joanna Will - Kansas State Coordinator
Joanna works for the Kansas Rural Center (KRC), a non-profit sustainable agriculture organization that was founded in 1979. Through her work at KRC, she has had the opportunity to engage in pollinator protection and conservation, soil health improvement initiatives, women and beginning farmer education, specialty crop production support and advocacy, community health and integrated voter education initiatives, and has been deeply involved in the regenerative agriculture shift that is taking place in Kansas and elsewhere in recent years, fostering connections and education opportunities that help grow the movement. Joanna comes from a long line of Kansas farmers and ranchers and developed a love for the Kansas natural landscape and a passion for preserving it early in life. She currently lives and works on a 170-acre farm in Osage County, Kansas, where she and her husband raise heritage breed and landrace cattle, sheep, laying hens, and meat birds and a collection of ducks, geese, guineas, donkeys and livestock guardian dogs to keep the whole collection safe. They are passionate about stewarding the land in a sustainable way and contributing positively to their community.
Kaare Melby – Minnesota State Coordinator
Kaare is a farmer, artist and regenerative ag organizer. As Field Organizer Director at the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), Kaare has built extensive farmer contacts and relationships across Minnesota and the Midwest. He helped to build and organize Regeneration Midwest, the group that wrote and was awarded the grant that is funding this project. Kaare has spent the past five years working to research, map, and organize regenerative farmers and organizations promoting regenerative agriculture and land-use in the Midwest and beyond. Kaare’s work has resulted in the development of a regenerative farm map that helps to connect farmers and consumers. Kaare also has a farmstead and practices regenerative agriculture in the unique climate and landscape of Northeastern Minnesota.
Laura Paine – Wisconsin State Coordinator
Laura has been involved in regenerative agriculture education and research in the upper Midwest for more than 25 years. Her work experience includes research, education and market development work for grass-fed and organic farmers with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, and service as program director for Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA). Laura is an NRCS Technical Service Provider and a Certified Crop Advisor. Laura and her husband recently retired from raising grass-fed beef on their 82-acre farm near Columbus, WI.
Betsy Hoffman - Illinois State Coordinator
Betsy comes from a long line of farmers. She graduated from Illinois State in Ag Business and Finance. She and her husband spent the last 20 years running a small trucking firm. In 2016, she decided to go work on the family’s farm and start transitioning the ground her father-in-law had been farming conventionally. Currently she has turned 700 acres into organic certified row crops, with another 150 still in the process. First hand experience in seeing her soil change has made her passionate to share the knowledge she has gained.
Advisors
Research Advisory Committee
Pete Huff (Wallace Center at Winrock International)
Keefe Keeley (Savanna Institute)
Ben Lilliston (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy)
Tara Ritter (IATP)
Kim Williams-Guillen (Detroit Flight Path Farms, University of Michigan, ARERC)
Alex Liebman (Rutgers University and ARERC)
Luke Bergmann (University of British Colombia and ARERC)
Kenichi Okomoto (University of St. Thomas and ARERC)
Lenny Hogerwerf (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, the Netherlands)
Rodrick Wallace (New York State Psychiatric Institute)
Technical Advisors from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
David Eisenman (University of California at Los Angeles)
Astrid Hendricks (ICF International)