Kelsie Cosens

Katie's Bio

Katie is the marketing manager at Alberta Beef Producers, and has had an extensive career in brand development. She is also a third-generation farmer from central Alberta, and has dedicated over 30 years to the beef industry, focusing on seed stock production. Katie farms with her family at Rocky Mountain House, and has judged most of the major beef shows in Canada. This includes the Agribition Beef Supreme Show, also known as the Super Bowl of cattle shows.

Alberta Beef Producers

Mike's Bio

As the Sr. Manager, Environmental Sustainability at Nutrien, Mike leads Nutrien’s global sustainability work on water, biodiversity, waste, and climate as priority sustainability topics and how they relate to sustainable agriculture. He also supports Nutrien’s climate strategy and looks for opportunities around system solutions between the nature-climate-food nexus with agri-food value chain partners.

Mike received his Bachelor of Science with Distinction in Environmental Science and his Master of Science with a concentration in Hydrology from the University of Lethbridge. He is registered as a Professional Agrologist (P.Ag.) and an Environmental Professional (EP), and currently serves as the Chair of the Water Committee for the Potato Sustainability Alliance in North America.

Nutrien

Boyd's Bio

Dr. Boyd Mori is an Associate Professor and NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Agricultural Entomology in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science at the University of Alberta. His research group focuses on developing integrated pest management strategies for insect pests of field and horticultural crops. Boyd combines foundational and applied research incorporating behavioural, chemical, and molecular ecology to understand and exploit the biology of insect pests, their host plants, and natural enemies.

Boyd has worked on insect pests across a wide variety of field crops including alfalfa, canola, quinoa, red clover, pulses, and wheat. He has garnered over $4.1 million in research funding since 2019. Recently, a major focus of his research group is investigating the impact of generalist predators and the potential threat of insecticide resistance across prairie cropping systems.

He currently leads a laboratory consisting of 10 graduate students (6 PhD, 4 MSc), 2 postdoctoral fellow, 2 full-time technicians, and numerous undergraduate research assistants.

Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Science

Tawnya's Bio

Tawnya is from the Piikani Nation, she was recently hired as the Project Manager for the Siksikaitsitapi Agriculture Project because of her passion for bettering the lives of her community.

Tawnya has 6 years working in various projects that brought new opportunities to the Piikani people through, food sustainability, land stewardship, promoting the importance of language and encouraging land based learning with youth and elders.

Through Tawnya’s educational background in journalism she has encompassed the skills to network and build important relationships throughout the confederacy.

Rural Routes to Climate Solutions