From a holiday #sweetpotato emergency to persistent cucumber pathogens, #NCStateCALS Professor Lina Quesada-Ocampo is on the front lines helping #vegetable growers deal with devastating #plantdiseases. . Originally from #Colombia, she had worked with #cassava and the late blight of potato. Through those experiences, she became fascinated with vegetables and specialty #crops in general. . I don’t choose what the next problem is going to be – it’s just going to come to my table, and I work to fix it. Growers say, “We need you to work on this,’’ and that’s what I do. That can also mean switching gears quickly and having #resilience, which can be difficult, but I like new and diverse things, and the funding provided by growers allows us to have that flexibility. — Lina Quesada-Ocampo