La Mirada, CA & San Francisco, CA — March 19, 2026 — The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) is recognizing Joy Sterling, Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Iron Horse Vineyards, with the 2026 CENIC AIR Award for Pioneering Contributions Advancing Networking and AI. The award will be presented at CENIC’s biennial conference “The Right Connection” to be held from March 31–April 1, 2026 in Monterey, CA.
At Iron Horse Vineyards, in a relatively short time, this testbed has become a living laboratory for agricultural research and education, working with CENIC staff, faculty and staff from CENIC member institutions UC San Diego and its San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) faculty, Sonoma State University faculty and students, and Santa Rosa Junior College Shone Farm leadership, as well as AT&T, and other private entities.
The Iron Horse Testbed project, first launched in December 2024, will use the information gathered by sensors placed in vine blocks, both in the soil and air, to improve the output and increase the sustainability of the vineyards. Operation of drones and multiple cameras by students and staff will produce imagery for a digital twin as the vineyard goes month-by-month from harvest to harvest. We trust that this testbed will inspire others in viticulture and many other agricultural areas in California and beyond.
“Agriculture today is a matter of national security,” stated Iron Horse Vineyards CEO Joy Sterling. “The need to deploy a growing array of technology solutions to ensure sustainability and resilience for our food production will serve to protect the output needed to feed our nation. And our ability to enable full traceability across the agricultural supply chain is key to ensuring food safety in the future.” This quote from Sterling inspired CENIC leadership and project participants.
Testbed-collected data will become an AI-enabled resource promising to help deliver important new knowledge that will inform the future of agriculture. Most important, this testbed is attracting participation from faculty and their students focused on viticulture, physically in Sonoma County and remotely via CENIC’s networks all over California, as well as faculty and students hoping to create similar models in other agricultural areas across California.