Kentucky State University College of Agriculture, Food Science, and Sustainable Systems Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources 205 Cooperative Extension Building Frankfort, KY 40601 Phone: (502) 597-5942 FAX: (502) 597-6763 E-mail: kirk.pomper@kysu.edu

1988-1996 Ph.D. Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. Major: Horticulture. Dissertation Title: Expansion, Apoplastic Solutes, and Sugar Uptake in Developing Strawberry Fruit.

1986-1988 M.S. University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN. Major: Horticulture. Thesis Title: Studies of Developmental Abnormalities In Interspecific Phaseolus Suspensors.

1982-1985 B.S. (with High Distinction) University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN Major: Horticulture. One year of directed studies in tissue culture of Cypripedium regina.

2015-Present. Director of KSU Land Grant Programs and Professor in the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (25% Research and 25% Teaching), I provide leadership as Director of Research and Extension Programs in the Land Grant Program at Kentucky State University, Frankfort, Kentucky.

Directors Duties (50%). I lead Research and Extension efforts in the Land Grant Program (LGP) and the College of Agriculture, Food Science, and Sustainable Systems. The LGP has over 250 employees and approximately 100 students. I am responsible for administering a 12.5 million dollar budget and I am responsible for compliance and reporting for USDA REEport and CRIS programs. I also lead the KSU McIntire Stennis Forestry Research project. I represent the interests of KSU at the Association of Research Directors at quarterly meetings, including developing new research relationships. I provide leadership of the KSU Farm, EERC, High tunnel, and Aquaculture Research Facilities. I coordinated undergraduate research efforts by hiring students for research efforts across CAFSSS, and promoting student participation at the Kentucky Academy of Science, Posters at the Capitol, and National Conference on Undergraduate Research; and I am an author and Committee Member of Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund Mini Grant Program.

Research (25%). As Horticulture research leader, our program has focused about 80% of our research effort toward developing pawpaw as a new commercial crop, with the remaining 20% of our research effort directed toward primocane blackberry, grape, and hazelnut variety trials. Our pawpaw research includes efforts to: 1) develop pawpaw rootstocks and training systems; 2) support on-going efforts related to KSU's role as USDA Repository for pawpaw in germplasm acquisition and preservation; 3) propagate and establish pawpaw variety trials to evaluate promising new varieties for potential release and trademark by KSU 4) conduct variety trials with primocane fruiting blackberries from the University of Arkansas and Eastern Filbert Resistant hazelnut varieties; 5) expand the KSU pawpaw website; and 6) develop organic production methods. I have had cooperative research projects with Dr. Robert Geneve on in vitro clonal