Professor of Horticulture and Viticulture

Paul is a New York native, growing up on a small farm in the Finger Lakes. He obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees from Cornell University, sandwiched around three and a half years as a county extension agent in Fulton County NY. Following a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the University of Delaware, he served on the Horticultural Science faculty at the University of Minnesota for 19 years. He was then recruited to fill the Head of the Horticulture Department position at the University of Nebraska where he now serves as the resource person for Nebraska’s developing grape and wine industry. During this time he also worked two vintages in Australia, collaborating with Rob Walker and Peter Clingelheffer at CSIRO and Richard Smart and Steve Wilson at the University of Tasmania. His research and educational programming in Nebraska has focused on cultivar and genotype evaluation, vineyard floor management, trellising, disease management, high tunnel grape production and more recently on crop load impact on grape and wine quality. Paul has taught several courses at the University of Nebraska including the popular “Vines, Wine and You”.