Kevin M. Folta is a Professor in the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida.  His research program examines how light signals are sensed in plants and how different parts of the spectrum can change shelf life and high-value fruit and vegetable traits. His group also uses novel genomics approaches to identify genes related to flavor and disease resistance. An innovative new project is testing a method to create new small-molecule drugs for use in everything from plant growth regulation to MRSA.

He has been recognised for his science communication efforts, speaking with public audiences, and training scientists and agricultural producers to be better communicators. In 2016 he was recognised with the prestigious CAST Borlaug Award in Agricultural Communications and was named as the Ag Pro Person of the Year.  He also hosts the weekly podcast Talking Biotech (www.talkingbiotechpodcast.com), with over 200 episodes and one million downloads.