Kate M. Scow is an American soil scientist and microbiologist whose research investigates the soil microbiome especially in contexts of agricultural soil management and the remediation of polluted environments. [1] She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Soil Science and Microbial Ecology in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources (LAWR) at the University of California, Davis. She was director of the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility and director of the University of California's Kearney Foundation of Soil Science. Scow was a former editor-in-chief of Soil Biology and Biochemistry . [2]
Scow is originally from Rockville, Maryland and lived, as a child, in Argentina and Israel. Her first experience with soil was on a road trip across Europe with her family, collecting soil from every country she passed through. [3] She majored in biology at Antioch College, graduating in 1973. After graduate studies at Harvard University and in evolutionary biology at University of Chicago, she earned a master's degree and Ph.D. in soil science from Cornell University in 1986 and 1989 respectively. She joined the Dept of Land, Air and Water Resources as assistant professor at the University of California, Davis in 1989 and retired in 2001. [4] She was visiting professor in agroecology at Maringa State University in Parana, Brazil.
Scow was elected as a Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America in 2000. She was the 2017 Nyle Brady Frontiers in Soil Science lecturer at the meeting of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, and the 2019 Francis E. Clark Distinguished Lecturer on Soil Biology. In 2022 she was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. [2]
Ignacio Chapela is a microbial ecologist and mycologist at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for a 2001 paper in Nature on the flow of transgenes into wild maize populations, as an outspoken critic of the University of California's ties to the biotechnology industry, as well as a later dispute with the University over denial of tenure that Chapela argued was politically motivated. Chapela is also notable for his work with natural resources and indigenous rights.
The Rausser College of Natural Resources (RCNR), or Rausser College, is the oldest college at the University of California, Berkeley and in the University of California system. Established in 1868 as the College of Agriculture under the federal Morrill Land-Grant Acts, CNR is the first state-run agricultural experiment station. The college is home to four internationally top-ranked academic departments: Agriculture and Resource Economics; Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology; and Plant and Microbial Biology, and one interdisciplinary program, Energy and Resources Group. Since February 2020, it is named after former dean and distinguished professor emeritus Gordon Rausser after his landmark $50 million naming gift to the college.
James Michael Tiedje is University Distinguished Professor and the director of the NSF Center for Microbial Ecology (CME) at Michigan State University, as well as a Professor of Crop and Soil Sciences and Microbiology. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003 and served as president of the American Society for Microbiology from 2004 to 2005. The Center he directed developed novel methods for microbial community analysis that have greatly expanded knowledge about complex microbial communities in soil, sediments, engineered systems, the oceans and within animals. He also created experiments to detect life on Mars that were carried aboard the Viking Mars landers.
Farooq Azam is a researcher in the field of marine microbiology. He is a distinguished professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California, San Diego. Farooq Azam grew up in Lahore and received his early education in Lahore. He attended University of Punjab, where he received his B.Sc. in chemistry. He later he received his M.Sc. from the same institution. He then went to Czechoslovakia for higher studies. He received his PhD in microbiology from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. After he received his PhD, Farooq Azam moved to California. Azam was the lead author on the paper which coined the term microbial loop. This 1983 paper involved a synthesis between a number of leaders in the (then) young field of microbial ecology, specifically, Azam, Tom Fenchel, J Field, J Gray, L Meyer-Reil and Tron Frede Thingstad.
Pamela Christine Ronald is an American plant pathologist and geneticist. She is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and conducts research at the Genome Center at the University of California, Davis and a member of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She also serves as Director of Grass Genetics at the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville, California. In 2018 she served as a visiting professor at Stanford University in the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
Mary K. Firestone is a professor of soil microbiology in the Department of Environmental Studies, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her laboratory's research focuses on the ecology of microbes in various soils, and their contribution to the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle in particular.
Bruce E. Rittmann is Regents' Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for pioneering the development of biofilm fundamentals and contributing to their widespread use in the cleanup of contaminated waters, soils, and ecosystems.
Diana Harrison Wall was an American environmental scientist and soil ecologist. She was the founding director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability, a distinguished biology professor, and senior research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. Wall investigated ecosystem processes, soil biodiversity and ecosystem services. Her research focused on the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys and its Wall Valley was named after her. Wall was a globally recognized leader and speaker on life in Antarctica and climate change.
Jonna Ann Keener Mazet is an American veterinarian, epidemiologist and a Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology and Disease Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Since 2021, she has served as the Vice Provost of Grand Challenges at the University of California, Davis where she provides leadership for transdisciplinary research and solution-oriented activities dedicated to global health problem solving across. UC Davis Grand Challenges focuses on developing climate solutions, preventing and responding to emerging health threats, promoting sustainable food systems, and reimagining the role of land-grant universities. Dr. Mazet is known for her long-standing achievements and contributions to operationalizing the One Health approach, which is now a key component of the Quadripartite Organizations core mandates for addressing health challenges. In 2009, Dr. Mazet founded the One Health Institute at the University of California, Davis and served as the Executive Director until July 2020. Recognized for her innovative and holistic approach to emerging environmental and global health threats, she is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dawn Yvonne Sumner is an American geologist, planetary scientist, and astrobiologist. She is a professor at the University of California, Davis. Sumner's research includes evaluating microbial communities in Antarctic lakes, exploration of Mars via the Curiosity rover, and characterization of microbial communities in the lab and from ancient geologic samples. She is an investigator on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and was Chair of the UC Davis Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences from 2014 to 2016. She is Fellow of the Geological Society of America.
Efi Foufoula-Georgiou is a Distinguished Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of California, Irvine. She is well known for her research on the applications of wavelet analysis in the fields of hydrology and geophysics and her many contributions to academic journals and national committees.
Susan Sharpless Hubbard is an American hydrologist and geophysicist, and Hubbard is the Deputy for Science and Technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 for contributions to hydrogeophysics, biogeophysics, and the geophysics of permafrost.
Katherine Whittaker Ferrara is an American engineer who is a professor of radiology at Stanford University. Ferrara has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Jennifer B. H. Martiny is an American ecologist who is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. Her research considers microbial diversity in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. In 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Adina Merenlender is a Professor of Cooperative Extension in Conservation Science at University of California, Berkeley in the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, and is an internationally recognized conservation biologist known for land-use planning, watershed science, landscape connectivity, and naturalist and stewardship training.
Ashley L. Shade is a Director of Research with the Institute of Ecology and the Environment of Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Shade is an adjunct associate professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences. She is best known for her work in microbial ecology and plant-microbe interactions.
Yiqi Luo is an ecologist specializing in systems analysis and modeling. His interests lie in terrestrial ecosystem and carbon cycle modeling, with some of his more renowned papers focused on understanding how novel methods of modeling can help to understand soil carbon dynamics. He is currently the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor at the School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences at Cornell University.
Gail Taylor is a British plant scientist. She was Distinguished Professor and John B Orr Endowed Professor in Environmental Plant Sciences at University of California, Davis until spring 2024 when she became Dean of Life Sciences at University College London.