Dan Brainard is a Professor in the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State University. His current primary research and extension interests include 1) development of reduced-tillage cover crop intensive vegetable production systems to help growers improve soils and increase crop resilience to stress, and 2) weed ecology and integrated weed management, with an emphasis on cultural and mechanical approaches. He received his PhD in Horticulture from Cornell University. Prior to graduate school he worked on commercial vegetable farms in the Northeast U.S., and served as an agricultural extension educator for the U.S. Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa.