Her responsibilities will include oversight of research facilities and production operations at the Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center, Mendel’s Way Greenhouse and Farm near State College, the college’s on-campus greenhouses, and the three research and extension centers. In addition, she will represent the college in agInnovation, the association of regional and national experiment station directors.
The Agricultural Experiment Station is the cornerstone of the College of Agricultural Sciences’ research efforts. It empowers the college with the capacity and flexibility to face challenges, seize opportunities and sustain agriculture in Pennsylvania. It serves as the umbrella organization for managing and reporting the college’s state and federally funded research.
More than 250 faculty members in the college are conducting agricultural research experiments or projects. These researchers work across more than 300 buildings at University Park and at the nearby Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs; at the Fruit Research and Extension Center in Adams County; at the Lake Erie Regional Grape Research and Extension Center in Erie County; and at the Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Lancaster County.
Gugino also will contribute to implementing the strategic direction for the college’s Technologies for Agriculture and Living Systems initiative and the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Science (SAFES). The office will continue its close partnership with the college’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, and she will work closely with the Ag Research Administration office.
She will continue to oversee the college’s graduate education program, which will be administered by a new faculty director of graduate education, helping to guide the program’s strategic vision and continued growth, and she will be the first point of contact for managing the college’s federal capacity funding portfolio.
Gugino earned a bachelor’s degree in horticulture and master’s and doctoral degrees in plant pathology, all from Penn State. She was a postdoctoral scholar in plant pathology at Cornell University from 2004 to 2008 before joining the faculty in Penn State’s Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 2014 and to full professor in 2019.
She served as the director of graduate studies for the plant pathology graduate program from 2016 to 2022, then became assistant dean for graduate education in 2022, and later associate director for the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station in 2023.
Gugino’s research and extension interests include integrated vegetable disease management, plant pathogen diagnosis, disease monitoring and forecasting, and sustainable crop production. She works with research faculty, extension specialists and county-based extension educators to develop integrated pest and crop management strategies that address important and emerging diseases of the major vegetable crops grown in Pennsylvania.
She has focused on existing and new technologies that can provide growers and other agricultural service providers with research-based information on pathogen biology, epidemiology and vegetable disease management. She has authored or co-authored 37 peer-reviewed journal articles, 80 conference proceedings, and scores of extension publications and trade journal articles. In addition, she has given more than 350 extension presentations.
Gugino has served on several college and University committees and has been a member of the American Phytopathological Society; Pasa Sustainable Agriculture, formerly the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture; and the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association.
She served on the board of directors of Pennsylvania Certified Organic from 2017 to 2021 and was a member of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Pesticide Advisory Board. Among Gugino’s numerous awards and honors are the 2023 Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 American Phytopathological Society Excellence in Extension Award, the 2013-14 Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology Excellence in Teaching Award, and the 2011 American Phytopathological Society Northeastern Division Early Career Professional Award.
Gugino was inducted into the agriculture honor society Gamma Sigma Delta and the horticulture honor society Pi Alpha Xi.
“I’m thrilled to take on this new role and continue strengthening the College of Agricultural Sciences’ research enterprise,” she said. “The land-grant mission deeply inspires me because it is about turning innovative ideas into real-world impact. From advancing research commercialization to helping farmers boost profitability through smarter resource use and well-being, our faculty are driving interdisciplinary work that delivers solutions locally, regionally and nationally while addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”