About REACH

Beth Baker
Assistant Extension Professor
662-325-7491
beth.baker@msstate.edu

Beth is an Assistant Extension Professor in the College of Forest Resources, Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. Beth holds a B.S. in Biomedical Science, a M.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology, and received her Ph.D. in Forest Resources from Mississippi State University in 2015. She leads the REACH program and has been involved with the program since the it’s inception. The REACH program allows her to expand the focus of her research and extension activities, to assess the most effective management strategies to promote soil and water conservation, and ecosystem services while also helping Mississippi farms remain sustainable and profitable.

Alexandra Firth
Graduate Research Assistant

Alexandra is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture. Her dissertation work focuses the effects of cover crops on soil health in farming systems of the southeast. Alexandra received her M.S. from Mississippi State University in 2018 where she studied agroecology and soil health in rice production systems.  She has additional interdisciplinary experience working on habitat restoration, evolutionary genomics, climate change, avian ecology, invasive species management, and organic farming. Her research interests include sustainable agriculture, soil ecology and human-environmental relationships.

Thomas 'Beau' Badon
Graduate Research Assistant

Beau is an Agronomy Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. His thesis investigates the efficacy of cover crops in corn-soybean rotation systems in the Mississippi Delta to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff to surface waters. He received a B.S. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in Environmental and Soil Sciences, with a concentration in Conservation Ag and Sustainability, and minors in Watershed Science and Wildlife and Fisheries Science. His internship experiences include urban stormwater management and anadromous fish migration. His academic interests pertain to conservation, water resources, land use, wildlife and fisheries management, environmental science, soil science, and climatology.

Mark Hill
Research Technician

Mark is a 2018 graduate of the Mississippi State University Department of Biological Sciences where he studied ecology, trophic interactions, and biogeography. His research interests include wildlife habitat conservation and is currently engaged in a project with Delta F.A.R.M. that seeks to quantify the effects of cover crops on water quality in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley in an effort to mitigate nutrient loading to the Gulf of Mexico. Previously he has worked on research projects examining trophic interactions in a changing climate and the effect of timing of prescribed fire on the nutritional phenology of southeast loblolly pine plantations.

Andrew Lucore
Research Associate

Andrew Lucore is a Research Associate for the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. He received his B.S. from the very same department in May of 2018. After graduating he worked with Mississippi State’s Coastal Research and Extension Center in the Coastal Conservation and Restoration lab. There he worked on a variety of wetland restoration projects both in the field and in the lab. He now resides in Thompson Hall’s Water Quality Lab mostly assisting with water quality monitoring projects associated with conservation implementation to improve soil and water conservation.

Audrey McCrary
Graduate Research Assistant

Audrey is a M.S. student in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. Her thesis studies the environmental and educational value of conservation practice implementation on MSU’s livestock research properties as part of the Red Bud - Catalpa Creek Restoration Project. She received a B.S. from Texas A&M University, where she double-majored in Wildlife & Fisheries Science and Rangeland Ecology & Management. Audrey previously worked for Virginia Tech as a natural resource specialist aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. Her background and research interests consist of multi-use land management, wildlife management, conservation practices, and livestock farming systems.