Natalie spent over a decade investigating how to integrate cover crops and reduced tillage into vegetable production without using herbicides. She has a M.S. in Soil and Watershed Sciences from the University of Maryland, where she studied using a forage radish cover crop to suppress weeds and cycle nutrients before no-till spring vegetables. She conducted her dissertation research at UNH investigating the agroecological trade-offs of using tarps to kill a cover crop and suppress weeds before no-till summer vegetables. Natalie was drawn to this research after working on organic vegetable farms and as an organic inspector, where she saw how destructive tillage can be on soil and how difficult it can be to manage weeds. She is currently a USDA-NIFA postdoctoral fellow researching whether simple agronomic manipulations like cover crop seeding density and species selection can increase soil carbon through greater root inputs and changes in microbial physiology.