Meet the 2023 AmericanHort HortScholars at Cultivate’23

This year's six AmericanHort HortScholars will be hosting two sessions at Cultivate’23 to discuss trends, ideas and the next generation in the horticulture industry.

The 2023 HortScholars are Armando Villa-Ignacio, Kaitlin Swiantek, Regan Draeger, Taylor DeLand, Brandan Shur and Hamilton Crockett (read more about them below). 

Their sessions include “Ignite! With the AmericanHort HortScholars” from 4 to 5 p.m. Sunday, July 16 in room C170 and “Attracting the Next Generation of Employees” from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Tuesday, July 18 in Union Station Ballroom C (you can add the sessions to "My Show Planner” in the Cultivate’23 app). 

HortScholars — the industry’s top horticulture students — spend several days on-site at Cultivate’23 volunteering with set-up, learning about the green industry, networking in facilitated meetings with industry leaders and presenting on a horticulture topic of their choice. 

AmericanHort provides complimentary meals, lodging, an All-Access Pass to Cultivate and a complimentary one-year student membership, which has a total value of about $1,500. 

This year’s HortScholars are: 

—Armando Villa-Ignacio, a graduate student in the horticulture and landscape architecture department at Colorado State University under Dr. Jennifer Bousselot. He is pursuing a master’s degree, with plans to pursue a doctorate shortly after, and studying rooftop agrivoltaics, with an aims to make rooftop agrivoltaics open and accessible. He also has a passion for music, specifically barbershop music, and sings with the Barbershop Harmony Society; with his chorus, the Sound of the Rockies; and with his quartet, My Favorite Quartet. 

—Kaitlin Swiantek, a horticulture master’s student at the University of Georgia working with Dr. John Ruter. Her research aims to breed Pycnanthemum (mountain mint) — a pollinator-attractive plant with landscape-use potential — and add more information about the genus to the literature. She hopes introducing a pollinator-attractive plant into the landscape will draw attention to pollinator decline and help people support pollinators in their own communities. She plans to continue merging ornamental breeding and pollinator conservation in her career as a plant breeder. 

—Regan Draeger, a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a bachelor’s degree in sustainable plant systems with a specialization in horticulture and an associate degree in horticultural science. She developed her own wedding design business, worked in several greenhouses and interned with the Ohio State Master Gardener program. She currently works as a landscape designer at Corso’s Landscape while she earns her master’s degree in agricultural leadership, education and communications from the University of Tennessee, with an anticipated 2025 graduation date. 

—Taylor DeLand, who graduated in May from The Ohio State Agricultural Technical Institute with an associate degree in greenhouse and nursery management with a greenhouse major. She’s worked in horticulture for four years and attended the Columbiana County Career and Technical Center, where she studied landscape and environmental design. She wants to be a head grower in a large-scale greenhouse and in the future hopes to start a retail greenhouse near her hometown focusing on either a hydroponic production or growing spring annuals. 

—Brandan Shur, who earned a bachelor’s degree in horticultural science with a concentration in production systems and entrepreneurship, with minors in plant biology and biological sciences, from North Carolina State University. He gained research experience in the Horticultural Substrates Lab and continued his work with substrates by pursuing a master’s degree in the same field, focusing on developing and optimizing soilless substrates for container production systems for soft fruit. He hopes to continue pursuing his goals as a researcher. 

—Hamilton Crockett, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in crop and soil science from Virginia Tech with minors in environmental science, Chinese and French. She’s pursuing a master’s degree in plant pathology at Louisiana State University, where she works in the Plant Diagnostic Center and conducts research using molecular techniques to identify Oomycete species in woody ornamentals and trees across Louisiana. Her research has already identified several unreported host associations. She plans to work in the green industry investigating disease management/diagnosis. 

The AmericanHort Scholars program is open to undergraduate and graduate students majoring in floriculture, horticulture or a related field at two- and four-year colleges and universities (or those who graduate just before the program starts in July). 

Interested students can complete an online application, including a resume and two letters of recommendation, and 12 finalists will be selected to submit a 30-second video, with six selected for the program. AmericanHort’s Generation Next Community, which organizes young professional events and education, is the program’s selection committee. 

Visit americanhort.org/programs/hortscholar during the fall of 2023 for information on the 2024 application.