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Michael Shafer
Associate Dean for Research
Northern Arizona University
About the Hub
Three universities, one mission, the Arizona desert as the testbed.
The Arizona Hub for Agricultural Innovation is a three-university research and technology program working on the future of Arizona agriculture. Funded by the Arizona Board of Regents, anchored at the University of Arizona’s Yuma Ag Center, and built around a single idea: research should answer the questions the industry is actually asking.
Arizona’s agriculture is changing faster than the research can keep up.
Arizona produces some of the most valuable specialty crops in the country — about 90% of the leafy greens grown in the U.S. between November and March come from Yuma County alone. That production happens in one of the driest environments on Earth, with water that’s getting scarcer every year as the Colorado River system contracts.
The state’s growers, scientists, and engineers all know what the next decade looks like: less water, hotter summers, more pressure on every acre. What’s missing isn’t research capacity — Arizona’s three public universities have plenty of that. What’s missing is a fast, direct line from the problems the industry is facing to the people who can solve them.
The Arizona Hub for Agricultural Innovation is that line.
~90%
of leafy greens grown in the U.S. between November and March come from Yuma County.
Every acre, every drop · Yuma County
How we work
Different from a standard research center.
Three principles shape how the Hub operates and how we measure whether we’re succeeding.
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Industry-defined, not academy-defined.
Every project starts with a real problem from a real Arizona grower or producer. We don't pick research questions in a faculty meeting.
02
Solutions over papers.
Success is measured by what ships into the field, not by what gets published. Every funded project has a deployment milestone.
03
Field-tested in the desert.
Research moves to Yuma early. The Sonoran Desert is unforgiving, which makes it the right place to find out whether something actually works.
A program built to ship.
In 2026, the Arizona Board of Regents committed $3 million over four years to launch a new kind of research program — one focused on solving specific problems for the state's agriculture industry, not on producing papers. The Arizona Hub for Agricultural Innovation was created to deliver on that commitment.
The Hub is anchored at the University of Arizona's Yuma Agricultural Center and draws on faculty, engineers, and student researchers from all three of Arizona's public research universities — Arizona State, the University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University.
The first cohort of funded projects launches in October 2026, with results going to the field by the following summer.
Leadership
The team running the Hub.
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Stephanie Slinski, PhD
[ Program Director ]
Stephanie Slinski has degrees in Plant and Soil Science, Microbiology and a PhD in Plant Pathology. She started her plant pathology career in a plant disease diagnostic clinic at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, working with local farmers. She continued her studies at the University of California, Davis followed by postdoctoral training at the Forestry and Agriculture Biotechnology Institute at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She then returned to working with the agriculture industry at the Citrus Research and Development Foundation in Florida working with the citrus industry on tools to combat citrus greening disease. She came to Yuma in 2018 as the Associate Director of Applied Research and Development at the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture (YCEDA), a public-private partnership between the desert agriculture industry and the University of Arizona. In this role, Dr. Slinski drives high-impact research collaborations and strategic partnerships to address the critical needs of the agricultural sector. Her work focuses on advancing solutions in water conservation, Agtech, soil and plant health, and long-term agricultural sustainability.
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Tyler Smith, PhD
[ Technical Director ]
Tyler Smith serves as the Sr. Director of The Luminosity Lab at Arizona State University which is a lean, interdisciplinary group of highly exceptional students. Built on a “Skunk Works” model of innovation, Luminosity prides itself on strategic design, systems level thinking, and rapid product development. Tyler is a 4th generation Arizonan and grew up working on his family’s farm in Maricopa. As Technical Director of the Arizona Hub for Agriculture Innovation (AHAI), Tyler oversees the Ag Innovation Lab program to develop technology for the agriculture industry in the state of Arizona. In addition to that, Tyler oversees research teams working on projects ranging from AI software systems, medical systems, education solutions, autonomous vehicles and UAVs, robotic systems, aerospace systems, wearable and IoT devices, and electrical and energy systems. Their goal is to push the limits of emerging technology and advance projects from research to commercialization. Over the past five years he has received numerous patents in various fields including energy, robotics, automation, and medical and led teams at Luminosity to win national and global awards including Xprize, RedBull Global Innovation Challenge, and the NASA BIG Idea Challenge.
Steering Committee
The Hub is governed by a steering committee of research and industry leaders from across Arizona, responsible for setting program direction and ensuring funded projects align with the state’s agricultural priorities.
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Andy Koppisch
Associate Vice President for Research
Northern Arizona University
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David Ebert
Associate Vice President of Research and Partnerships
University of Arizona
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Jon Chorover
Associate Dean for Research
University of Arizona
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Troy Schmitz
Director, Morrison School of Agribusiness
Arizona State University
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Sarah Stabenfeldt
Assistant Vice President for Research
Arizona State University
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Paul Brierley
Director
Arizona Department of Agriculture
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Mark Smith
President
Smith Farms Company of Yuma Inc.
A three-university program
Funded and supported by.
Funded by
The Arizona Board of Regents.
A $3 million grant supporting program operations from 2026 through 2029.
In partnership with
- YCEDA
- Arizona Farm Bureau
- Arizona Department of Agriculture
- The Luminosity Lab
Get in touch.
Whether you’re a grower with a problem to solve, a researcher with a question to answer, or a partner organization looking to collaborate, the Hub is open for conversation.