Assistant Professor, Agriculture and Natural Resources
Specialization: 
Local Food Systems & Veterinary Sciences
Office: 
Kunz-Brundige Franklin County Extension Building, 2548 Carmack Rd., Columbus, OH 43210
Phone: 
614-292-7916
Biography: 

Tim joined Extension in 2015 as an Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) Educator in Hocking County. While in Hocking County, he worked to determine ANR resources programmatic needs within the county including food security challenges, invasive species impacts, and challenges due to tourism development. He also developed inter-program area collaborative and interactive programming in animal sciences for 4-H youth on species topics including equine, small ruminant, rabbit, and beef cattle. Additionally, he started the Poultry Team, a University level collaboration of Extension educators, OARDC faculty, and Veterinary Preventative Medicine faculty to address the lack of knowledge and outreach to the public regarding keeping, production of and biosecurity concerns regarding backyard poultry in Ohio.

In October 2018, Tim joined the Franklin County Extension team as an Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) Educator. Since joining Franklin County, he has worked to determine sustainable local food production programmatic needs within Franklin county to address food insecurity challenges in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods by assisting with the implementation of the Columbus Local Food Action Plan via collaborations with City of Columbus Public Health, Franklin County Local Food Council, Mid-Ohio Foodbank, Columbus City Council, Columbus City Schools, Reynoldsburg City Schools, OSU Farm to School, Franklin County Economic Development and the Franklin County Commissioners. He has also performed leadership responsibilities involving the creation, marketing and implementation of urban agriculture programming to assist the Buckeye ISA grant funded by the WW Kellogg Foundation in partnership with OSU Discovery Theme, Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation (InFACT), the Mid-Ohio Foodbank’s USDA Urban Agriculture grant, and the Growing Teachers Throughout the Seasons workforce development for students initiative in partnership with Columbus City Schools. OSU Farm to School and Scotts Miracle-Gro to create indoor and outdoor experiential STEM-based agricultural grow sites at all 75 Columbus City Schools elementary school locations plus multiple other districts and charter schools. Tim has also used his veterinary background to increase the scope of outreach of veterinary sciences programming to statewide network of Extension county 4-H youth development, agriculture and natural resources client residents as well as corporate and government audiences including American Electric Power, Glatfelter Corporation, the Ohio Forestry Association, the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Southwest Ohio Sanitarians Association, OSU Pesticide Safety and Education Program, the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and multiple county and regional public health organizations. Topics include forages and grazing, equine, small ruminant, cattle, poultry, and companion animal species plus ticks and tick vectored-disease prevention.

In addition to his Franklin County Extension role, Tim is a staff instructor for the Department of Veterinary Preventative Medicine at the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Here he teaches husbandry, nutrition, biosecurity, diseases, anatomy, and necropsy of poultry to 4th veterinary medical students as part of preventative medicine rotation. He has developed course materials to support class curriculum for lecture component of class, lead anatomy and necropsy of poultry in laboratory component of class. His courses have included instruction in-person, via zoom, and hybrid secondary to COVID changes.

Tim earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and B.S. in Zoology from The Ohio State University as well as a B.S in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ohio University. Click here for a copy of Tim's curriculum vitae.