NAAA Ag Aviation Expo 2027

Dr. Brad Fritz is an agricultural engineer and serves as the Research Leader of the USDA ARS Aerial Application Technology Unit in College Station, Texas. His areas of research include spray drift measurement and methods of mitigation, understanding the role spray nozzles and formulations play in the droplet size being applied and optimizing aerial application technologies and methods to enhance target deposition and reduce off-target impacts.

Dr. Ulisses Antuniassi is an Agronomist with a PhD in Agronomy and serving as a at Professor at Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), Botucatu/SP – Brazil. He has over 35 years of experience in Agricultural Engineering, focusing on application technology, ground sprayers, aerial application, UAV spray application, spray solutions, formulations, adjuvants, spray drift and good agricultural practices.

Milos Zaric leads the Precision Application Technology Lab at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where his research and extension efforts aim to optimize pesticide use and improve decision-making across row and specialty cropping systems.

Dr. Tommy Butts is a Clinical Assistant Professor, Extension Weed Scientist focused in Site-Specific Weed Management at Purdue University. Tommy’s research, teaching, and Extension efforts focus on identifying and providing recommendations for novel, applied weed management strategies including the use of precision agriculture, application technologies, and digital data in a site-specific approach.

Dr. Chenghai Yang is a Research Agricultural Engineer with the USDA-ARS Aerial Application Technology Research Unit in College Station, TX. Dr. Yang’s research focuses on the development and application of remote sensing technologies for precision agriculture and pest management.

Adam Madison is a Field Technical Specialist with 10 years of experience at Capstan Ag Systems, specializing in the SwathPRO spray system.

Mark Ledebuhr is the managing partner of Application Insight, LLC. Application Insight focuses on developing and optimizing spray application systems, in specialty and commodity crops, developing and improving methods for evaluation of spray application.

Dr. Henrique Campos is an agronomist with a Masters and PhD in Pesticide Application Technology. He has researched adjuvants, spray nozzles and techniques for drift mitigation and has more than 10 years of experience with field and research trials as well as laboratory equipment.

Dr. Dan Martin is a Research Agricultural Engineer with the USDA-ARS Aerial Application Technology Research Unit and has over 30 years of training and experience in aerial spray application technologies for precision agriculture.

Dr. Dharmasena is Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Associate of the Agribusiness, Food and Consumer Economics Research Center (AFCERC) at Texas A&M University. His current research interests are in the areas of Consumer Economics and Applied Demand Analysis, Agribusiness and Food Market Analysis, Behavioral Economics, Health and Nutrition Economics, Economics of Food Security, Food Environments and Obesity, Causality Modeling, Probability Forecasting and Forecast Evaluation, and Market Integration and Price Discovery. He is an expert in applied econometric modeling, both structural and time-series.

Dr. Price is an Associate Professor at the LSU AgCenter, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He continually works on new equipment and methods to help the agricultural spray plane industry and is a certified Operation S.A.F.E. analyst.

Matt Gill is NAAA’s manager of education, safety and policy. He formerly was an Extension Specialist at the University of Illinois and has served as an Operation S.A.F.E. Analyst since 2011.

Sam Marx is currently a Research Technologist for the Biological Systems Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is simultaneously pursuing his PhD in Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering at UNL. His current research includes aerial nozzle development using computational fluid dynamic modeling as well as other ground based and UAV precision application technologies. Sam has a history in the agricultural engineering industry working on development, testing and production of agricultural application systems, including aerial application equipment. Sam is an active member of ASABE where he is Chair of the MS-23/6/2 Aerial Application Standards and Safety Committee and former Vice Chair of the MS-23/6/5 Anhydrous Ammonia Application Standards and Safety Committee.