Dr. Kirk W. Pomper is the Professor of Horticulture in the College of Agriculture, Community, and the Sciences at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky. As Horticulture Research Leader, his program is focused on research and Extension efforts toward developing pawpaw as a new commercial crop, with additional research and Extension efforts directed toward American persimmon, primocane blackberry, organic production methods for crops, fermentation and distillation value-added projects with fruits, and specialty vegetable variety trials. Dr. Pomper also serves as Curator in KSU’s Repository for pawpaw in germplasm acquisition and preservation. Dr. Pomper received both a B.S. and an M.S. in Horticulture from the University of Minnesota in 1985 and 1989, respectively. He received a Ph.D. in Horticulture in 1995 from Oregon State University. Dr. Pomper has obtained over 10 million dollars in competitive grant funding from USDA and other granting agencies. He has published over 80 refereed publications in internationally recognized journals and in 2008 won the Shepard Award for the best research paper of the year published in the Journal of the American Pomological Society . His pawpaw breeding program has released three pawpaw cultivars, KSU-AtwoodTM in 2009, KSU-BensonTM in 2016, and KSU-ChappellTM in 2018. These pawpaw releases are being sold to the public by nurseries nationwide and internationally including Germany, France, Belgium and Slovenia. Dr. Pomper also served as the Kentucky State University Director of Land Grant Programs from 2015-2023 and as Dean of the College of Agriculture from 2017-2023, where he provided leadership for teaching, research, and Extension Programs in the Land Grant Program and College of Agriculture.