Mullahey to Lead Crop Science

The new department head in crop science is a University of Florida research and education center director with academic and professional roots in North Carolina.

Dr. Jeff Mullahey, a faculty member in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences for 22 years, will assume his new duties June 1.

Mullahey has headed the West Florida Research and Education Center in Milton since 2000, overseeing faculty research on food production, restoration of natural areas, turfgrass management, forest ecology and weed science. Mullahey’s research focuses on tropical soda apple, an invasive weed that is a problem in Florida pastures.

The center that Mullahey directs is similar to NC State’s off-campus research and extension centers, although the Florida centers offer academic programs leading to bachelor’s degrees.

Mullahey earned two degrees from NC State: a bachelor’s in animal science in 1979 and a master’s in agronomy in 1986. He received his Ph.D. in range science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1989.

Mullahey began his career in North Carolina. After earning his bachelor’s degree, he was an extension agent  in Anson County from 1980 to 1983.

He joined the University of Florida faculty in 1989 as an assistant professor and range scientist stationed at the university’s Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee, Fla., where he served as acting center director from 1995 to 1997 and was named associate center director in 1999. He left the southwest center in 2000 to lead the west center.