Inside IALR

Growing Talent at the CEA Innovation Center

• Institute for Advanced Learning and Research

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What happens when Ph.D. candidates, master’s students, undergrads and interns all share the same greenhouse? You get a powerful, layered research environment that grows more than just plants.

In this episode of Inside IALR, we explore how the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Innovation Center is not only advancing sustainable agriculture but also training the next generation of researchers and industry leaders. A partnership between IALR and Virginia Tech, the CEA Innovation Center blends hands-on research, mentorship and workforce development. 

You’ll hear how students at four different educational levels are conducting applied research on plant disease management, beneficial microbes and nutrient optimization. From mentoring interns to designing dissertation-level experiments, these students are learning and growing. 

🎙 Guests:

  • Dr. Kaylee South – Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist, Virginia Tech (stationed full-time at IALR)
  • Colin Fite – M.S. Student, Virginia Tech
  • Praveen Gajula – Ph.D. Student, Virginia Tech

🔍 Topics Covered:

  • What Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is and why it matters
  • How beneficial microbes are being tested in vertical farms and greenhouses
  • The role of students in maintaining IALR’s demonstration farm
  • Mentorship across education levels—from intern to Ph.D.
  • Career goals of students entering the CEA industry
  • Opportunities for students to join the CEA Innovation Center

Whether you're an educator, student, grower or just curious about the future of agtech, this episode offers a glimpse into how research, education and industry come together under one greenhouse roof.

The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research serves as a regional catalyst for economic transformation in Southern Virginia. Our services, programs and offerings are diverse, impactful and far reaching.

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Caleb Ayers:

Welcome to another episode of Inside IALR. Thanks for being here. One of the cool things we have on campus is called the CEA Innovation Center and CEA stands for Controlled Environment Agriculture. That's something we run in partnership with Virginia Tech and what's cool about this is that this facility is all about, you know, kind of doing research to advance the controlled environment agriculture industry, but also training the next generation of workers, and it's been cool to see that kind of come really come together this summer, as we've had and one of our guests, Dr South, will talk more about this but we've had graduate level students, both PhD and master students, We've had undergraduate students, We've had interns all working there this summer collectively, so that's been been cool to see. But we have three guests who are here from the CEA Innovation Center and I'm going to let you all introduce yourself. Say your name, your title and your favorite pizza topping.

Kaylee South:

My name is Kaylee South. I am an assistant professor and extension specialist in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech. My favorite pizza topping, I think, is pepperoni.

Colin Fite:

Classic Can't go wrong. My name is Colin Fite, I'm a master's student at Virginia Tech and my favorite pizza topping is also pepperoni.

Praveen Gajula:

Classic. Hi, I'm Praveen Gajla. I'm a second year PhD student at Virginia Tech. My favorite piece of topping is chicken, that's a good, good, unique choice.

Caleb Ayers:

I like that. I was scared you were going to say pepperoni and then I was going to say pepperoni and I was going to have to throw that question out the window because that's boring. So yeah, I think you know what the work that you guys are doing in the CEA Innovation Center is really cool and has that's been growing a lot here at IALR in the last several years and is becoming a very important part of what we do. But, Kaylee, I'll kind of let you start as far as set the scene of you know what what is controlled environment, agriculture, big picture and kind of as an industry. What is that and where is it going?

Kaylee South:

CEA or controlled environment agriculture is broadly applied to a couple of different ways that we produce crops within protected environments. So it ranges from producing crops within semi-controlled or not as highly controlled environments, such as high tunnels, all the way up to completely controlled, where we have plants growing in indoor vertical farms and then in between that we have greenhouses. Virginia has a really rich history of greenhouse production. We've been growing plants and greenhouses dating back. I think the earliest mention was in the 1700s. The first mention of a greenhouse being built in Virginia was then, and so since then the primary crop that's grown in greenhouses in Virginia would be the ornamental category, so that would be like your bedding plants, so that would be like your pansies, petunias, those sorts of things that are being grown in greenhouses. So that's a really important crop for Virginia. Of things that are being grown in greenhouses, so that's a really important crop for Virginia.

Kaylee South:

Recently, due to technology advancements and decreases of prices of those technologies, as well as demand from consumers, there's been a shift for producing crops edible crops and medicinal crops inside of greenhouses and indoor vertical farms. There's been a you know, one big reason for that is the demand from consumers and the need to improve our ability to get food to locations where there's not easy access to fresh produce, and so we so controlled environment agriculture is one that is starting to take off because of those reasons, and so in Virginia, a lot of our effort on the government side, as well as on the research and training side, is going into making Virginia a very important, key and friendly place for building or implementing greenhouse or indoor vertical farm production systems for the production of edible and medicinal crops.

Caleb Ayers:

That's an excellent rundown there. And for you, colin Praveen, how did you guys end up, I guess? Yeah, tell me about your kind of your educational journey and how you ended up here at the CEA Innovation Center in Danville.

Colin Fite:

In my undergraduate. I was a bachelor's of chemistry and a bachelor of biochem dual major. I didn't really have much experience with growing plants or anything of the sort. But I did some undergrad research working with corn or maize, and that's where I started getting interested in the plants. So I started looking into different programs and I decided upon Virginia Tech with Dr South.

Praveen Gajula:

What about for you? I did my bachelor's back in India and I came to the States in 2022 to do my master's. I got my master's in agronomy from Mississippi State University. That's where I was doing a little bit of research on using sustainable ways to improve the production. So that's at the end of my master's. I kind of hadn't thought to do my PhD, so that's where I started to look for funding and I had the opportunity to meet Dr Kelly South, so that's how I ended up being here. We had a couple of meetings, we shared our research interests and that's where we matched like doing some sustainable ways to improve the production for the CEA as well.

Caleb Ayers:

And I didn't mention up front but Kaylee is a Virginia Tech professor and who is stationed full-time here at IALR working with the CEA Innovation Center, working with students, working with extension agents, all sorts of things like that. So as far as kind of what goes on in the CEA Innovation Center for all three of you, kind of tell me about what you guys have been up to, what your research has looked like, what you've learned so far.

Kaylee South:

I'll give like a broad overview of what we're doing in the CE Innovation Center. So we focus on a couple of different crops and a couple of different major topics. I would say some of the broad categories that we fall into is the use of beneficial microbes for improvements of crop production, whether that be through the control of plant pathogens or through the improvement of growth rate of crops, or the improvement of quality, like nutritional quality or the visual quality of the crop, and then also in nutrient use. Another way is to improve the sustainable production aspect, so reducing nutrient input and maybe inputs of other types of things that are needed to be able to produce the crops as well. Another major category would be new crop development, and so we're focused on a couple of different up and coming crops that would be either for niche markets or ones that could be a major crop within CEA. Those include things like edible flowers.

Kaylee South:

We also work with herbs such as dill and fennel, and then we also work with various projects with different cultivars and species of microgreens, and then we also do applications of like other types of biotechnology. So we have a grant right now where we're looking at applications of RNAi-based biopesticides within CEA facilities, and then those are. We also collaborate with ILR for the robotics side of things, looking at the use of robotics and imaging for applications in research as well as applications in the production side of things, and so I believe those are probably our major categories of research that we have going on. We also have industry collaborations where we work with companies Our big one, that right now would be with Canon Virginia Inc. So we have a collaborative project with them. And then we also, of course, as you mentioned, we train students and then we also host various opportunities for education for various audiences, ranging from the general public, k through 12, extension agents, growers, cea suppliers, those sorts of things. So we have probably quite a breadth of things that are going on out in the CEA Innovation Center.

Caleb Ayers:

It's kind of like ILR as a whole. You can't really explain it in one sentence. So for you guys, colin and Praveen, kind of what have I know? You said you got here this like in the past few months, correct? So what kind of has your research looked like so far? What are you learning? What are you hoping to accomplish while you're here?

Praveen Gajula:

My research topic is a little bit diverse. As a part of my PhD, I had to develop my dissertation with a couple of objectives, but mine's a little different, where I had diverse things that I was exploring, which has plant disease management. I have nutrition stuff as well, as we are using the microbial inoculants to improve the production side of things. I have started my project in mid-June and I have my project going on right now in the smart tables that the ILR has. So I think we have pretty good research going on right now and we have a couple of more objectives that we think we might start them in somewhere in mid-September and you'll be here for two years. Right, I'll be here for two years, or maybe two and a half.

Caleb Ayers:

that's the timeline, so plenty of time to be on another podcast way down the line. Oh yeah, sure what about for you, colin.

Colin Fite:

I don't really have a ton of time. I have to get all of my objectives done in the span of a year. So currently I've just been working on getting familiar with the systems and working with fertilizer and adjusting pHs of the solutions. I've been playing around with a couple of like mini systems, deep water culture stuff like that, just to get familiar before I get into my full experimental runs. So I don't really have any of my objectives pushing out right now. So I don't really have any of my objectives pushing out right now, but they'll start a little bit before or a little bit after the upcoming summit, the CEA Summit East. But my research is going to be mainly be focusing on beneficial microbes, either individually or in a consortium, which is just a combination for application mainly in basal Cool.

Caleb Ayers:

I know you guys are just kind of getting started on your research here and, kaylee, you can chime in here if needed as well. But how do you see, I guess, the work that you're doing here, the research that you're doing here, I guess, first, what are your career goals and how do you see this research, this work, this experience contributing to?

Praveen Gajula:

those using a couple of biologicals. That's where my interest turned to horticulture, because I was mainly focused on field production kind of thing and I want to switch my career to horticulture. I did that and I had an opportunity to learn more about horticulture crops and what kind of systems they use and what kind of crops they do grow in the field as well as in the cea. Um, I am pretty sure that I wanna I'm not pretty sure, but I'm still in a dilemma that I might, uh, choose an academia side or as an industry, but. But I was more focused on research kind of thing. So it might be an academia or an industry, but my research should be focused on the biological side and the beneficial microbes.

Colin Fite:

That's cool. And what about for you, colin? For my career goals, I have a couple of ideas. I like planning ahead. So one of the things that I would like to do is open up my own analytical testing site for different plants, similar to what they have at the IALR with, like Jack in the chemistry department. But another one of my goals, if that doesn't work out, is to just be able to work in the CEA industry, because it's very interesting and I think that the beneficial microbe aspect is gaining a lot of traction, especially in the research side of things. But if it could be applied into commercial production in a variety of different crops that they grow, not just leafy greens, I think it would be beneficial.

Caleb Ayers:

And I mentioned up front that over the summer we had you two, so PhD student, master student, a undergraduate student from Virginia Tech, and then also two summer interns. So, kaylee, you have been supervising all of that, summer interns. So, kaylee, you have been supervising all of that. So what's kind of the environment been like with those four levels of students, kind of, you know, conducting research, learning the ropes? What has that been like? How do you, I guess, support those different types of students?

Kaylee South:

It creates a really, I think, positive learning environment and a good opportunity to for students to mentor, like for the graduate students. It gives an opportunity for them to mentor the interns in areas where they have strengths, such as like in building powerpoints and writing for scientific purposes. The graduate students have mentored the interns in developing their powerpoints and are about to start reviewing their research reports that they write at the end of the summer. So our interns are undergraduates at various, they come from different universities and colleges and so they come in with varying levels of experience working within a lab and working with plants, and so it gives a really cool opportunity for us to be able to, for them to be able to conduct independent research and then also for them to learn from our undergraduate student who is about to go start his his undergraduate degree at Virginia Tech. He just graduated from DC, from Daneville Community College, and he has been had an opportunity to mentor the interns as well, so giving him some mentoring experience as well as training, being able to train others with all the knowledge that he's learned in the last two years two and a half years or so that he's worked in the lab. For me, you know, having different levels of students gives an opportunity to be able to you know you alter your, what you're teaching or kind of what your goals are for the students. So for the interns, the goal is for them to learn the general aspects of horticulture, growing crops within vertical farms and greenhouses, as well as the general scientific process. So developing the project idea, your hypothesis, and then taking that all the way through to data collection, analysis and then writing up the results at the end.

Kaylee South:

And then we have an undergraduate student who's where.

Kaylee South:

He's been here for several years and so he could pretty much run the greenhouse if he needed to.

Kaylee South:

He's been working on maintenance as well as in running projects, and so he's at a different level in his knowledge and his skills, both in the greenhouse and his knowledge of how the lab works within itself.

Kaylee South:

And then for the graduate students, they are working on fulfilling and building their thesis and dissertation work. They are working on fulfilling and building their thesis and dissertation work, and so for that they have a bit more of an independence in their work. So part of their programs is for them to explore their ideas and to build them independently, with guardrails, of course, with staying within the realms of our facility and within the realms of our funding that we receive. But for the most part their education is a bit different to where now they're applying multiple ideas, looking at various systems, working both in the laboratory as well as in the greenhouse to learn skills, to learn how to be a scientist, how to be good horticulturist, and then also to gain leadership skills as well. So it's a lot of the same things but applied on different levels, based on the intern all the way up to the graduate students.

Caleb Ayers:

And for you guys getting to mentor the interns and even you know the undergraduate student as well. I mean, what is, what has that been like for you guys getting to step?

Colin Fite:

into that. It hasn't been awkward or anything. Most of the undergraduates they were in our shoes about or there we were in their shoes about two years ago or so. So there's not really a disconnect and I think it's very helpful for both of us to be able to teach and also get insight from, like Jacob, the undergrad that helps in the vertical farms. He does he does a lot of his own stuff For me.

Praveen Gajula:

I would say it was a good experience working with the interns because, as Dr South mentioned, they come from different backgrounds and they're doing their internship with the IALR. So it's kind of a diverse thing where we are trying to give them the knowledge that we have and we are happy to take what they are trying to say or what they are conveying us to listen to. Overall, it was a good experience for us to learn and teach them something in the CEA.

Caleb Ayers:

I say teaching is a good way to learn stuff, so that's good for you guys. The more you get to do that, I'm sure, the more you're learning these things as well. Obviously, we have different levels of graduate students, undergraduate students, who will be here year-round, but especially during the summer when we have interns. Having those four levels there, how does that contribute to the success of the CEA Innovation Center and how is that idea part of its mission?

Kaylee South:

to begin with, Having the group that we have with the different levels of students and technicians. I think that it fulfills a couple of different goals of the CEA Innovation Center, one, of course, being the research. So they are key in carrying out the research that we do within the CEA Innovation Center. The students are the ones who they assist with coming up with the research ideas. They are the ones who, primarily, they take the lead on setting up and setting up their projects, collecting the data, analyzing the data and then reporting it, and so because of that, they each level of student is in making sure that we get the data that we need to be able to gain the knowledge that's needed to fill some of the gaps in the industry and within the horticulture research field in general. So they're really important in moving forward the research side of things. They're also key in developing outreach materials also key in developing outreach materials. So all the students have participated in writing extension articles or will assist in writing extension articles that will be published through the corporate of extension the Virginia corporate of extension, throughout the station, throughout the state of Virginia. So they'll be publishing articles through that route to share with the general public, growers and extension agents.

Kaylee South:

The students are also important for our demonstration farm. So we have the CEA Innovation Center. Our facility not only serves for research but also for demonstrating our research as well as new technology and things like that, and so the students are really key in maintaining that facility as well as helping to provide tours to the people that come through the facility as well. And I think the second important goal that students help us meet our goals within the CE Innovation Center is through training. One of our goals is to use our collective resources and expertise through Virginia Tech and IALR for training students to, you know, to go into their fields of interest, but then also to move forward the CEA industry itself, and so it's a really key part of, I think, the goals of the state in general to train students to enter and to strengthen the CEA industry.

Caleb Ayers:

I mean, as you mentioned, virginia Tech and ILR are both on board with that and even even with Go Tech. I mean I know that you and I know you helped with that process of implementing that where middle schoolers are learning about controlled environment agriculture in a very hands on way throughout Virginia middle schools and that's a very you got to show them what it is, then they can know how to pursue it. That's all the questions that I have. I think you know it's cool. Cool to have this conversation. I wish we could have every level in here, but we don't have enough enough mics for that. But cool to have this. You know this conversation about all the different types of students that are in the CEA Innovation Center, all the cool research that you guys are involved in. Is there anything else that you all would want to add or think it's important that people know?

Colin Fite:

Before I even started looking for programs. Prior to finding this program, I honestly didn't know much about CEA in general. I came from North Carolina so I was just assuming that most of the food that gets produced is field-based. So I was just assuming that most of the food that gets produced is field based. But after coming to Virginia and touring a couple of facilities, it's honestly shocking at how many different like leafy greens and everything is getting produced in Virginia and it was kind of almost a culture shock between North Carolina and Virginia because I honestly don't know of many facilities in North Carolina that have this level of like commercialization in the CEA industry.

Caleb Ayers:

That's cool to see you jumping on board that quick and getting excited about it. So anything else you guys want to add.

Kaylee South:

I would just say that if there's anybody that has interest in CEA or getting involved as a student, either as an intern or volunteering, or wants to become a master's or PhD student to study doing research within CEA, that we have positions that open up every now and then We'll post them on our website, the CEAICcom or org, I don't know, we might have to figure it out. I have it pulled up.

Praveen Gajula:

Okay.

Kaylee South:

It's org. I'll say that again oh, org, okay. So if anybody's interested, they'll have to check our website, the CEAICorg, so that we can. We'll post job opportunities and on there because we will offer internships, undergraduate research, technician positions, as well as master's and PhD level on our website. So if anybody's interested in becoming a student, we would gladly, gladly, be interested in chatting with them.

Caleb Ayers:

Awesome. Thank you all for being here, appreciate it.

Kaylee South:

Thank you.