Our Board of Directors
David S. Shields
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina and Chair of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation and Head of the Slow Food Ark of Taste for the South, Dr. David Shields published his history of Lowcountry cuisine and agriculture, Southern Provisions in 2015. He is currently building a website surveying the most significant southern heirloom fruits, named Old Southern Orchards.
Brian K. Ward, Ph. D.
PREsident
Brian K. Ward is a research scientist with Clemson Coastal Research and Education Center in Charleston, S.C. He holds a bachelor’s in Environmental Biology from Auburn University and a Ph.D. in Plant and Environmental Science from Clemson with a specialty in Horticulture. He has been conducting research in vegetable production for 21 years and grain and rice for 10. Brian specializes in increasing historically significant very rare seed for biosecurity and conducting organic research in legume, grain, and vegetable rotations. His main mission is to research cultural practices in agriculture that growers can adopt, leading ultimately to a dramatic increase in sustainable and organic acres across S.C.
Merle Shepard
VICE PRESIDENT
Emeritus professor of Entomology with Clemson University, Dr. Shepard directed the graduate degree programs of 25 students. He lived in southeast Asia for eight years as head of the Entomology Department of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines and as team leader for a project on integrated pest management in Indonesia. He has authored and/or co-authored over 150 publications and has published five books and numerous book chapters
Campbell D. Coxe
SECRETARY
Campbell Coxe is a 5th generation farmer from the banks of the Pee Dee River located in Darlington, S.C. He lives there with his wife Meredith where they have raised two children, Cam Jr. and Hagood Coxe. Campbell is an amateur historian and wanted to preserve South Carolina's southern heritage of rice farming, which was once the state's major crop provider. In the mid-1990's he gave away the rice he grew as gifts to family members. Now, 20 years later Campbell is still passionate about making sure the consumer gets the most natural product he can provide. Carolina Plantation Rice is in several restaurants and grocery stores throughout the United States making his sun up to sun down days all worth it.
Richard Boyles, Ph. D
BOARDMEMBER
Richard (Rick) Boyles earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences at University of South Carolina-Columbia and a Ph.D. in Genetics at Clemson University. Currently, Boyles is an assistant professor in the Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences at Clemson. His research program focuses on applied aspects of plant breeding and genetics and how emerging technologies can be responsibly used to better identify and/or develop crop germplasm to make them more productive, resilient, nutritional, and available to our regional stakeholders. The program is also working to understand the relationships between genetics, metabolomics, nutrition, and flavor in cereal grain crops including wheat, barley, and sorghum.
Marion Rollen Chalmers
Boardmember
A native of Hardeeville, S. C. Rollen Chalmers is a Gullah farmer, millwright, landscape contractor, and outdoorsman. Responsible since 2010 for the cultivation of Carolina Gold at Turnbridge Plantation, the original site of the rice’s restoration by Richard Schultz, Sr. and now under the administration of Richard Schultz, Jr., Chalmers is among the most experienced field growers of heirloom rice in the United States. He is particularly knowledgeable about the field behavior of rice under climatic stress. Chalmers has recently worked with Sarah Ross farming the upland rice fields being trialed at Wormsloe Historic Site.
Jimmy Hagood
boardmember
For Jimmy Hagood, Food for the Southern Soul™ isn’t just the name of his specialty food and catering business; it’s his way of life. Following his passion, Hagood has made an indelible mark on the lowcountry food scene. As a barbecue impresario and an advocate of coastal South Carolina’s unique culinary culture, he has brought national visibility to the art of barbecue cooking, and further elevated high-quality Southern pantry items.
Slow cooking began as a hobby for Hagood. An insurance advisor, he spent weekends basting pork shoulders infused with his special marinades and taste testing recipes. In March of 2002, Hagood took his food focus full-time. He traded his briefcase for a 30 ft long barbecue rig to launch his catering, specialty foods, and restaurant businesses.
Greg Johnsman
boardmember
Greg Johnsman — along with his wife Betsy — is the owner and operator of Marsh Hen Mill on Edisto Island. As a boy in the upstate, Greg learned the process of milling grits on antique mills from a third-generation miller/moonshiner. He earned a master’s degree in Agriculture Education from Clemson University after being the last Poultry Science undergrad in school history. After marrying Betsy McKoy and moving to Wadmalaw Island, Greg’s father-in-law put him to work on the family farm. It was here that he developed his deep appreciation for the traditional techniques of farming on sea islands. Together, with Betsy and their family, he continues farming and milling heirloom varieties of corn, rice, and peas.
Chef Kevin Mitchell
boardmember
In December of 2008 Chef Mitchell became the first African American Chef Instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston located within Trident Technical College in Charleston, SC. In April 2015, Chef Mitchell was Chef Coordinator for Nat Fuller’s Feast, a recreation of a banquet held in Charleston in 1865 by renowned chef and caterer Nat Fuller. The original feast, held at Fuller’s famous Bachelor’s Retreat restaurant, was the first to bring together both black and white patrons to break bread in a celebration of the end of the Civil War. In June of 2018 he was appointed to the national board of directors of Slow Food. In 2019 Chef Mitchell was contracted by the University of South Carolina Press to write a book that addresses South Carolina products and dishes. He will write this book with Dr. David Shields, professor at the University of South Carolina. At the end of 2019 Chef Mitchell was appointed by the governor of South Carolina as a South Carolina Chef Ambassador for the year of 2020 and 2021
Amy Lawton-Rauh, Ph. D
BOARDMEMBER
At Clemson University, Amy Lawton-Rauh’s lab focuses on adaptive genomics of crops, crop wild relatives, and weedy species. Exploring these questions guides her in translating models into tools that improve how agriculture impacts food security, human health, and ecosystems impacted by production. She is an associate professor of genetics and biochemistry.
Sarah Ross
BOARDMEMBER
Sarah Ross is the president of the Wormsloe Foundation and director of the Wormsloe Institute for Environmental History. She also serves on the faculty of the University of Georgia and as the of Director of the UGA Center for Research and Education at Wormsloe. WIEH, in partnership with UGA-CREW, is focused on the broad study of evolving land use on the Georgia coast and the resulting cultural adaptations.
Dil Thavarajah, Ph. D
boardmember
Dil Thavarajah is an Associate Professor at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Clemson University. She leads the Pulse Biofortification and Organic Nutritional Breeding program. She also co-leads the Phenomics component of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement at Cornell University. Before her current position, Dil worked at the Canadian lentil breeding and biofortification program at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She started the national Pulse Quality and Nutrition Laboratory at North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, to support the US Pulse industry for their nutritional marketing. Dil is internationally recognized as a leader in pulse biofortification, especially for iron, zinc, and selenium. Dil serves as an honorary visiting lecturer at, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and a key research partner to the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) to release biofortified lentil cultivars for Africa and Asia. Thavarajah holds a Ph.D. in Plant Science and MSc in Soil Science from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and a BSc in Soil Science from the University of Peradeniya.
M. Tracey Todd
boardmember
Tracey Todd is the president and CEO of Middleton Place Foundation. Middleton Place National Historic Landmark and the historic Edmondston Alston House, together, welcome over 150K visitors annually. Besides preserving the historic sites, teaching American history is the primary mission of the Foundation. Tracey believes there is no way to fully understand the Middletons (a President of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Minister to the Court of St. Petersburg, a South Carolina Governor and a signer of SC’s Ordinance of Secession) without understanding the crop that provided their wealth and way of life — rice. Equally important, the knowledge of rice culture is central to interpreting the lives and contributions of the thousands of enslaved people who lived and worked at Middleton Place. Historic agriculture, animal husbandry and food ways are themes that are vital to understanding the past and essential to the mission of MPF.
Malcolm Rhodes, M.D.
TREASURER
Richard Schulze, Jr., M.D.
BOARDMEMBER
Richard Schulze, Sr., M.D.
BOARDMEMBER
MEMBERS IN EMERITUS
Glenn F. Roberts
PAST PRESIDENT
As founder of Anson Mills, Glenn has been at the forefront of reestablishing Carolina Gold Rice as a viable Southern crop. He is passionate about growing, harvesting, and milling other nearly extinct varieties of heirloom corn and wheat organically. When he sold all his worldly possessions and started Anson Mills back in 1998, Glenn envisioned recreating the Southern larder by bringing back ingredients that had vanished over time: grits, cornmeal, Carolina Gold rice, graham and biscuit flour. The Carolina Gold Foundation is an offshoot of Glenn's passionate curiosity for grains, agriculture, and history.
Charles Duell
BOARDMEMBER EMERITUS
Max L Hill, III
BOARDMEMBER emeritus
Stephen Kresovich, Ph. D
BOARDMEMBER emeritus
Stephen Kresovich joined Clemson University in July 2013 as the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair of Genetics in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry and the School of Agriculture, Forestry, and Environmental Sciences. In this role, Dr. Kresovich serves as director of the Clemson Institute of Translational Genetics and the Advanced Plant Technology Program. Both initiatives are charged to integrate advances in genetics and genomics to solve problems in agriculture, the environment, and human health.