Women In Agriculture

ROB MILLS

PERRYVILLE, MISSOURI

Women blazing a career path in agriculture today have numerous options to choose from. Many

wind up in the classroom, teaching at the college or high school level. Michele Reba knew early

on that teaching, as she says, “wasn’t her jam.” She’s a woman who’s slept in thatched houses

on concrete floors, danced the meringue on a Caribbean night and spent three months

watching C-130’s land on skis while in Antarctica.

The classroom wasn’t her thing…it couldn’t contain her anyway.

Although she’s always up for a good adventure, today Dr. Michele Reba mostly can be found

on the campus of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. There she is a research

hydrologist and currently the acting research leader for

the USDA-ARS Delta Water Management Research Unit. Her office and laboratory are

on campus at ASU.  There she does guest lectures and says she reaps

the benefits of being on a college campus.

She’ll also be part of an upcoming event in Jonesboro…the annual National Conservation

Systems Cotton & Rice Conference, to be held January 30-31 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton

Red Wolf Convention Center. Dr. Reba will speak at the conference, sharing the stage with Jerry 

Dona Clark, a producer from Craighead County, Arkansas. The event is presented by AgWiki, Mid 

America Farm Publications & Mid America Farmer & Grower.

It all started for her in the home of the auto industry, Detroit. Born in suburban Dearborn,

Michigan, to parents who hail from Croatia.

Her Dad worked for the Ford Motor Company and her Mom

was a secretary. They worked hard and raised four children. Their children knew

 that college was a path they wanted for their kids. 

After graduating from Dearborn’s Edsel Ford High School, she landed at Ann Arbor, where she 

earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University 

of Michigan. Upon graduation she joined the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, where she 

designed and constructed a gravity-fed aqueduct with the community where she lived. She 

returned to school, this time to Oregon State University, where she completed her Master of 

Science in Forest Hydrology and Civil Engineering. She worked for the US Forest Service in the 

Pacific Northwest as a Hydrologist after graduation.

Her time with the Peace Corps and the Forest Service helped spark a

lifetime interest in hydrology. “Since then, all my career has been focused on the

study of water,” she said.

Included in all her travels was a brief jaunt to Antarctica as a surveyor’s

assistant. It left her with one indelible impression of Antarctica…” It was amazing—stark and

extremely cold”!... For a northern Michigan native, that is an informed comment worth

taking note of.

She finalized her education with a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Idaho.

There she studied seasonal snow with researchers from the USDA Agricultural Research Service 

(ARS)-the in-house research arm of the USDA. Along the way, she found her spouse-Grant Camp 

when they were both working in Zion National Park in southern Utah during her undergrad. Camp 

was a long-time wildland firefighter out west. (and talented musician) 

The pair and their three daughters left the Pacific Northwest in 2011 and moved to 

Jonesboro so Reba could start her position with the ARS.  When asked if her new husband had

regrets over leaving the beauty of the Pacific Northwest for their Dixie destination, she replied

“he’s originally from Carolina. The move got him closer to home.”

The things we do for love.

With the move to Arkansas, Reba shifted her focus to agricultural water quantity, water quality,

and greenhouse gas in the Lower Mississippi River Basin as the sole scientist at a newly

established worksite of the ARS. Dr. Reba quickly established a wide network of collaborators

and stakeholders that served as the foundation for growth of the research program. In May of

2014, the Delta Water Management Research Unit was established, and Dr. Reba was the first,

and for a period, the sole scientist at the newly established unit. She says she is fortunate to work 

with two talented research agronomists at DWMRU, Drs. Joseph Massey and Arlene Adviento-

Borbe.

Reba has gained national and international recognition for her research with over 80 refereed

journal articles and multiple millions in grant funding. She has established strong collaboration

with regional producers, several of whom received the first ever payment for carbon credits for

rice production practices in the world. Her expertise in rice sustainability has contributed to her

receiving several major awards and her being the first female to be named the Rice Researcher

of the Year.

She looks back on her career and realizes she has been fortunate to have supportive co-

workers and colleagues that have shaped her science. Specifically, certain individuals like

Dr. Danny Marks, retired ARS, was fundamental in how she approaches research and 

collaboration. During her time in Arkansas, Dr. Tina Gray-Teague, Arkansas State University, has 

been and continues to be an influential part of her research.

Reba has found the balance of marriage, family & career that many professional women

acknowledge they haven’t been able to locate. She has found satisfaction in the applied nature

of her research and is hopeful that it is influencing crop management in the region.

To sum up, the woman whose parents worked hard to give the family they

created opportunity for the proverbial better life, talks in basic terms to the generation

that will come after her. “Take the energy you have and find something you love. Work hard

and do your work well and you will have success.” ∆

ROB MILLS: MAFG Contributing Writer