Field Tested

The sun has barely crept up over the horizon at the University of Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center, a 200-acre tract of land just south of the Knoxville campus where plant and soil science students are at work doing research that, quite literally, touches the world. The sound of a lawnmower firing in the distance breaks the silence. Before long, Rose Gibbons, a turfgrass science and management undergraduate who spent the summer interning at the center, rides out, ready to do her morning’s labor.

Small plots of various species of grass from the fairways of top golf courses and fields for football and soccer stadiums are set up for UT turfgrass science professors to study. Their industry-leading research seeks to answer fundamental questions like: “How do we make surfaces that look beautiful from the stands and on TV while, at the same time, being fit for the greatest athletes in the world?”

Rose Gibbons

Gibbons, a transfer student from Illinois, worked in commercial landscaping before moving to Knoxville. After settling in, a conversation with a former boss made her realize that, by fate or chance, she had moved only a few miles from one of North America’s most elite turfgrass education programs. Two years into her studies, she’s already completed internships with Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles and helped to prepare the field at Orlando’s Inter & Co Stadium for this past summer’s FIFA Club World Cup 2025™.

As Gibbons finishes her mowing, trading one piece of equipment for another, the morning’s rays shine on a building behind her that is proof of how highly UT is regarded in this discipline.

“That’s the FIFA building,” says Gibbons, who helped install and maintains the plots of grass inside. This is the testing ground for the playing surfaces that billions of people will see when the men’s FIFA World Cup 26™ kicks off in North America. Gibbons and about 15 other UT undergraduates are involved with a long list of research and performance activities, from testing for ball bounce, grass color, and player safety, to simulating traffic and indoor stadium conditions for surfaces that will host 104 matches across 16 stadiums in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

It’s hard, daunting work.

“But it’s also about the most fun you can have while getting paid,” Gibbons says.

Brandon Horvath (left) and Becky Bowling (right)

“We’re a hidden gem,” says Brandon Horvath, one of a core of four professors in the UT turfgrass program. He recently took the reins as the undergraduate coordinator from Distinguished Professor of Turfgrass Science and Management John Sorochan, who is leading the research project for FIFA. “A few years ago, we worked with an advertising agency and the first thing they told us was, ‘Nobody knows about you.’”

But they should. 

Besides the university’s collaboration with FIFA to develop the field surfaces for the Club World Cup last summer and FIFA World Cup 26, UT’s teaching, research, and Extension faculty—which includes Horvath, Sorochan, Jim Brosnan, and Becky Bowling—has placed students at the Super Bowl and the Masters at Augusta National, among many other prestigious locations. A December 2025 alumnus from New Jersey, Andrew Evans, interned with the Philadelphia Eagles—his favorite pro football team—and even worked at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. 

And the result of these prestigious internships is evident in the program’s 100 percent job placement rate. 

According to a network map that Bowling updates regularly, there are hundreds of UT turfgrass alumni presently working across 17 states in golf courses, parks and recreation departments, and for sports teams in major cities—Atlanta, Dallas, San Diego, St. Louis, Tampa—as well as in smaller communities in Montana, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. 

Recent graduates have taken jobs with Oakmont Country Club, where the U.S. Open has been hosted a record 10 times and has been the site of three PGA Championships; Seminole Golf Club, which counts five-time Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady and Gerry McIlroy (father of 2025 Masters winner Rory McIlroy) among its members; and Major League Soccer franchise FC Cincinnati.

“Very few people understand the level of science and depth of knowledge it takes to maintain a world-championship-level golf course or soccer pitch,” says Horvath. “But at UT, that’s what we’ve always sought to teach our students.”

Ivan Navarette in AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas

The expertise they gain during their undergraduate years opens a wealth of career opportunities. Some remarkable examples make headlines, like Ivan Navarrette, who came to UT from nearby Loudon, Tennessee, and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in plant sciences. FIFA representatives were so impressed with Navarrette when he was a student working on the AgResearch Farm last year that they offered him a job as a stadium pitch operations supervisor in Mexico ahead of the FIFA World Cup 26 tournament. 

But there are numerous other areas in which graduates make an impact every day.

“The turfgrass industry has five major sectors,” Bowling explains. “Golf, sports turf, seed and sod production, community turf—what you see in cities, schools, and cemeteries—and lawn and landscape. Nationally, we’re estimated to contribute approximately $60 billion to $100 billion to the economy. UT students and alumni play a role in every facet of that contribution.”

Conlan Burbrink (left) and Rhys Fielder (right)

Beyond their industry work, UT’s alumni are prominent in academia, passing on their knowledge to the next generation. Master’s and PhD graduates of UT at high-intensity research universities include Adam Thoms (MS ’08, PhD ’15) at Iowa State, Jay McCurdy (MS ’08) at Mississippi State, and Matthew Elmore (MS ’11, PhD ’14) at Rutgers.

Conlan Burbrink (BS ’20), earned a master’s degree at Texas A&M before returning for his PhD studies in 2022 under Sorochan, who was his undergraduate mentor. While at UT, the Cincinnati native has worked the Super Bowl, the Cricket World Cup, and interned with the Cincinnati Reds Urban Youth Academy, Orlando City Soccer Club, and Surrey County Cricket Club in England. From a research perspective, he’s curious about two areas: growing grass indoors, particularly the effect of light and color, and how the field of turfgrass science can be advanced through data analytics.

“Turfgrass isn’t just growing grass—it’s how the athlete interacts with it, how the environment interacts with it,” Burbrink says. “I’m using statistical techniques that aren’t typically used in agronomics, like machine learning and AI, to answer more complex questions about turf performance.”

Conlan Burbrink on the pitch in Qatar

Burbrink was on the pitch in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup tournament, where the heat was so stifling that large air conditioning units had to be custom-built for FIFA spectators and players. The men’s FIFA tournament will be hosted in 2030 by six countries—Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco—and four years later will be held in Saudi Arabia. Because Burbrink’s research is future-focused, the FIFA research project is an incredible opportunity to test hypotheses about indoor grass conditions that may benefit the organization for years to come.

“There’s no facility in turfgrass that compares to what we have on the AgResearch farm,” Burbrink says. “It’s completely enclosed, no natural light, so that we can answer both practical and physiological questions. FIFA’s support to build that building and conduct this research allows us to further turfgrass science as a discipline.”

Bowling, a co-principal investigator on the FIFA research project, coordinates field research days, where faculty from UT and Michigan State University convene with pitch managers from each host venue and FIFA’s pitch management team, including Senior Pitch Management Manager Alan Ferguson, a longtime friend of Sorochan’s who recruited him as a special advisor to the organization in 2018. The events have provided a unique opportunity for UT’s students—the majority of whom are local to Tennessee and the Southeastern United States—to be a part of global work with real-life outcomes.

“These are high-profile international events that we help facilitate on behalf of FIFA, and the scale and visibility require an all-hands-on-deck approach,” Bowling says. “Our students consistently rise to meet that challenge, showing up early and putting in 10- and 12-hour days to do whatever is needed to demonstrate excellence, whether it’s prepping materials, greeting guests, or ensuring the plots are ready to showcase to the world.”