Mitchell Westmoreland is a Ph.D. candidate working with Dr. Bruce Bugbee in the Crop Physiology Laboratory at Utah State University. He received a B.S. in Biology from Utah State University in 2018 and worked for the USDA Forage and Range Research Laboratory before starting his graduate work. His Ph.D. research focuses on whole-plant physiology and cultivation of medical Cannabis in controlled environments. He has published his research on photobiology and plant nutrition in high-impact peer-reviewed scientific journals. Westmoreland developed the first university-level courses at Utah State University focused on medical Cannabis cultivation in 2021. In 2022, he was nominated as the Graduate Student Teacher of the Year in the department of Plants, Soils, and Climate at Utah State University.