Elected Councilor-at-Large
APS welcomes our newest Council member, Samantha Thomas, Bayer Crop Science, who has been elected as Councilor-at-Large for the 2025-2028 term. Below is her leadership experience and view statement from the 2025 officer election.
Leadership Experience
I have been active in APS for more than 25 years, beginning when I was in grad school. I have been a member of various committees, including holding leadership roles in the Turfgrass Pathology, Seed Pathology, and Diagnosticians committees. I have served as a member of the Nominations Committee, and I am currently the seed industry representative of the Office of Private Sector Relations (OPSR). In recent years, I have been active as part of our Bayer (previously Monsanto) initiatives with students, which have included participating in students/industry sessions, panels, and conversations. I have been a speaker at the annual Plant Health meeting for the past few years at various sessions or symposia, and these requests are associated with bringing an industry view to a given topic.
I am a leader within the seed industry in the areas of seed health, seed pathology, and phytosanitary trade matters. I have established and led numerous cross-industry working groups to address U.S.-based agricultural challenges in partnership with the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA). I also have held leadership positions within ASTA on various committees and subcommittees. Given my knowledge of the seed industry and best practices, I supported ASTA as a member of an industry consultation group that worked with the USDA to draft the Regulatory Framework for Seed Health (ReFreSH) documents; I previously worked with ASTA and the USDA on establishing an on-shore testing program for cucurbit seeds in an effort to safeguard the United States from cucumber green mottle mosaic virus introduction and establishment in the Northern California seed production area. For cucurbits, I am active on the Emerging Viruses of Cucurbit Working Group (EVCWG) coordinated by Rebecca Melanson and Bill Wintermantel, which was an outcome of a Phytoviews session at APS. I remain active on the EVCWG.
Through APS I have met numerous individuals and been an invited speaker at a variety of external meetings. The highlight of these requests is being invited as a guest speaker to universities, as I enjoy the opportunity to engage with students about the pros and cons of an industry career.
Statement of Vision for APS
- Goal A: Advancements in plant health science are accelerated through professional collaboration.
- Goal B: A growing workforce has the skills necessary to ensure sustainable plant health
- Goal C: Our science impacts decisions leading to a sustainable future.
“Do it with passion or not at all” is one of my favorite quotes. I have spent more than 20 years helping growers and farmers all over the world be more successful by providing crop production guidance based on plant pathology principles. This is my passion: enabling others through knowledge sharing. While more recently I have moved into a policy space, I have been able to keep plant pathology and seed pathology as a focus area. I still engage in outreach and education of others, including students, farmers, policymakers, and academic partners. Fundamentally, plant pathologists are working to improve agriculture and sustain natural resources that support and benefit humankind. For me, the value of APS is that this is where the science speaks. It does not matter what type of organization you represent (academic, government, or industry); APS is the forum where we all can come together in collaboration, generate data, and use the outcomes to solve disease problems across the Unite States and around the globe. These outcomes can then drive the routine practices used in industry or the policies implemented by governments. In my opinion, this is the true power of APS that needs to be maintained and increased: enabling the science. Some of the struggles of being in industry is the appearance of a lack of collaboration or cooperation; I have worked to address this in my career thus far and will continue to do so. Often times, bandwidth is the issue rather than disinterest. I feel opportunities exist for there to be better collaboration with some of the other associations that industry supports (e.g., ASTA). This, in turn, will elevate the awareness of APS as a partner in science-based solutions. I see increasing the collaborative forum across other organizations as an opportunity. Another area of opportunity, as we look to the future, is the emergence of new leaders. I feel APS has done well to engage and include scientists from other countries; however, the overall representation globally remains small. Is there a way to increase this participation through partnered funding with other associations? Strong global partnerships will be needed to address the developing global changes as climates change and new pathogens emerge. I see an opportunity for APS to be key in enabling partnerships and science-based solutions.
Many of my ideas are looking outside the U.S. view or landscape to increase the impact and awareness of APS. Agriculture and a healthy food supply is a global undertaking. In a world where agricultural land availability is decreasing but the population is growing, every successful production of a crop will matter. It is only through sound scientific data on new or evolving pests, updated epidemiological data with changing climates, and an informed society that we will be able to deliver on the challenge of successful agricultural production and protection of natural resources. I see APS as a place of collaboration and communication, which is key in these future endeavors.
