Keynotes & lectureship speakers
Katharine Hayhoe
Keynote speaker
Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet. She is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a Horn Distinguished Professor and Endowed Professor of Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech University. She has served as a lead author for the Second, Third, and Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessments and her work has resulted in over 125 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts, and other publications. She is the author of the best-selling book Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. She also hosts the PBS Digital Series Global Weirding and is a co-founder of Science Moms.
Hayhoe is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Scientific Affiliation, an Honourary Fellow of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, an Oxfam Sister of the Planet, and the World Evangelical Alliance’s Climate Ambassador. She has been named to lists including the TIME 100 Most Influential People and Fortune's 50 World's Greatest Leaders, received a number of awards including the National Center for Science Education’s Friend of the Planet Award, the American Geophysical Union’s Climate Communication Prize and Ambassador Award, and the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award, and is a United Nations Champion of the Earth in Science and Innovation.
Betty Klepper Endowed Lectureship
"Feeding the Future with Climate Resilient Crops"
The rapid advance of genetic technologies has provided new tools to generate crops that are resilient to climate change. Professor Pamela Ronald will discuss the development of climate-resilient rice varieties, engineering plants for resistance and strategies to reduce methane emissions in rice.
Pamela Ronald is a Professor, UC Davis; Investigator, Innovative Genomics Institute, UC Berkeley; & Director of Grass Genetics, Joint Bioenergy Institute. She earned her B.A from Reed College, M.S. degrees from Stanford and Uppsala universities, & her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Ronald studies plant genes that control resistance to disease and tolerance to environmental stress. She is coauthor of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, genetics and the Future of Food. In 2019, she received the American Society of Plant Biologists Leadership Award and an honorary doctorate from the Swedish Agricultural University. In 2022, Ronald was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture & the VinFuture Special Prize for Female Innovators. She is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Forestry and Agriculture, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2025, she received The President’s Award for the Advancement of the Common Good, Stanford University.
Pamela Ronald
UC Davis
Nyle C. Brady Frontiers of Soil Science Lectureship
"Looking Back to Move Forward in Soil Organic Matter Research"
The past two decades have seen large advancement in the understanding of soil organic matter (SOM) formation and stabilization dynamics, also thanks to a simple two-pool framework based on the contraposition between particulate (POM) and mineral associated (MAOM) organic matter. This simple conceptualization has helped us better discerning controls and quantifying the effects of improved management as well as disturbances on soil organic carbon storage. However, the POM - MAOM dichotomy only partially helps with the understanding of SOM persistence, as these pools have different ages on average, but largely overlapping age distributions. Further in arable land MAOM makes more than 80% of the soil organic carbon, requiring additional functional separation to advance the understanding of its dynamics and functions. Both POM and MAOM can be found free or occluded in aggregates, and microaggregates were identified as main agents for the stabilization of SOM, with management-dependent changes in their turnover driving SOM losses or accumulation. We will examine the methodological and conceptual limitations of the current two-pools framework and propose where more complexity should be brought in the SOM study framework to further advance SOM research in pursuit of soil carbon stewardship.
M. Francesca Cotrufo is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University. She earned B.Sc. from the University of Naples, Italy and Ph.D. from Lancaster University, UK. Prior to join CSU in 2008, she worked as a professor at University of Campania, Italy.
Dr. Cotrufo is a soil ecologist and biogeochemist, internationally recognized for her work in the field of litter decomposition and soil organic matter dynamics, and in the use of isotopic methodologies in these studies. She strives to advance understanding of the mechanisms and drivers of formation and persistence of soil organic matter, and their response to global environmental changes and disturbances. She uses this understanding to improve modelling of soil C-climate feedback to inform climate and land use policy and management. She also pursues applied research to innovate and increase throughput of soil carbon and health testing, and to propose soil management practices that regenerate healthy soils and mitigate climate change. As a scientist fully aware of the current and future challenges expecting humanity, Dr. Cotrufo is interested in promoting research education, and outreach activities to help mitigating the current human impacts on the Earth System and assure a better sustainable path for humanity. To this end, with other colleagues at CSU, she recently formed the Soil Carbon Solution Center.
Dr. Cotrufo is editor of the journal Global Change Biology. To date she published nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles, several book chapters and the book “A Primer on Stable Isotopes in Ecology”, published by Oxford University Press. She is a Clarivate Web of Science highly cited researcher (2018, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025); within the 2% of the world scientists for publication impact (PLSO, 2020), and a Soil Expert according to Expertscape's PubMed. Dr. Cotrufo has been the recipient of the SSSA Soil Science Research Award, the CSU Provost 14’er Award for Faculty Excellence, and the ASA-CSSA-SSSA Mentoring Award. She has been recognized as AGU Fellow, Nutrien Distinguished Scholar of Agricultural Sciences, SSSA Francis E. Clark Distinguished Lecturer, CSU Distinguished Resident Ecologist, MSU Eminent Ecologist, UN Leu Distinguished Lecturer.
Dr. Cotrufo is also the cofounder and Science Director of Cquester Analytics, an analytical facility designed to accurately quantify metrics of soil organic matter and C sequestration at scale, using science-based approaches.
Francesca Cotrufo
Colorado State University
"Enhancing Soil Functionality: The Key to Climate Resilience"
Increasing weather variability creates increased variation in crop production reducing profits and efficiency of natural resource use. Enhancing soil functionality, i.e., water availability, nutrient cycling, and soil gas exchange provides a foundation for creating climate resilience. Weather variation will increase because of climate change and integrating all of the pieces in the soil-plant-atmosphere system beginning with the soil will provide the foundation for an improved agroecosystem.
Jerry L. Hatfield is a retired USDA-ARS Laboratory Director of the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment and currently an Agricultural Consultant. He earned his BS from Kansas State University, MS from the University of Kentucky, and PhD from Iowa State University.
Dr. Hatfield remains active in research focusing on the genetics x environment x management complex at the field-scale by interacting with producers. This emphasis has been to evaluate the water and nitrogen use efficiency in cropping-livestock systems and the role of soil health in enhancing climate resilience, production, and grain or forage quality.
Dr. Hatfield is the author of over 520 referred publications and editor of 18 monographs. He is the recipient of numerous awards including election to the USDA-ARS Hall of Fame.
He is a past-president of the American Society of Agronomy and recently served as the lead editor on a virtual issue published by the Science Societies on Advancing Resilient Agricultural Systems: Adapting to and Mitigating Climate Change. Dr. Hatfield continues to be active in research and sharing information to producers on soil health and climate resilience.
Jerry Hatfield
USDA-ARS (retired)
Lee DeHaan
The Land Institute
Ron Phillips Plant Genetics Lecturers
"Accelerating Development of Kernza Perennial Grain with Modern Genomic Tools"
Agricultural production of food and fiber is essential to human life as we know it, but annual crop cultivation is a leading driver soil degradation, water scarcity, water contamination and habitat loss. The short-lived nature of annual crops results in substantial periods of each year when soils are devoid of living roots, which increases erosion, nutrient leaching, and weed invasion. Available perennial cropping systems address these challenges but often yield less or no directly human-edible food. Although perennial grain crops have potential to dramatically enhance sustainability, all widely grown grain crops are annual in nature. The feasibility of perennial grain crops has been questioned, with projected breeding timelines stretching to a century or more. Direct domestication of Thinopyrum intermedium to develop Kernza perennial grain has been underway since the 1980s. Now, an excellent reference genome has been developed using long-read sequencing. Utilizing this reference, low-cost skim sequencing plus imputation can generate millions of high-quality genetic markers. Rapid cycling of genomic selection generations enables two breeding cycles per year, six times faster than phenotypic selection. With 12 generations of genomic selection now completed, evidence is growing that directly domesticated perennial grasses can achieve yields similar to annual grains in several decades.
Lee DeHaan is a Lead Scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. He earned a B.A. degree from Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota.
Dr. DeHaan’s breeding program focuses on the aggressive implementation of genomic selection to accelerate breeding progress. He is also pioneering wide hybridization with wheat with the objective of obtaining wheat chromosome additions or substitutions in a perennial grass.
Over the last 30 years Dr. DeHaan has worked with more than eight different perennial grain candidate species, including perennial wheat, perennial rye, perennial barley, and perennial chickpea. He has authored more than 75 refereed journal articles, focusing primarily on perennial grain crops. His mostly widely cited contributions have presented evidence in support of perennial grains as a solution to agricultural environmental degradation and unsustainable production practices.
Edward S. Buckler
USDA-ARS
"Triple Gains: A Systems Approach to Nitrogen, Yields, and Sustainability from Field to Food System"
Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has driven incredible gains in crop productivity, yet only 12% of applied nitrogen reaches consumers as protein. Today, with a systems-level understanding of soils, plant and animal physiology, manure, synthetic biology, and metagenomics, we can design nitrogen flows for both greater efficiency and lower environmental impact. The Nitrogen 2.0 framework outlines pathways to triple system-level nitrogen use efficiency, increase yields, and cut inputs—by integrating alternative nitrogen sources for livestock, improving manure recycling, and creating cropping systems that retain and reuse more nitrogen on-farm. One example is the Circular Economy that Reimagines Corn Agriculture (CERCA), which focuses on making maize extremely productive and efficient for feed, starch, and fuel uses (60% of the global crop). In temperate climates, maize faces two inefficiencies: it grows poorly in spring when light and nitrogen are available, and it allocates excessive nitrogen to low-value storage proteins in the grain. CERCA addresses this by designing a cold-tolerant maize, shifting nitrogen away from grain protein, and enhancing soil nitrogen recycling and in soil stability through biological nitrification inhibition. Together, these strategies lay the groundwork for a resilient, nitrogen-efficient agricultural system—maximizing productivity while reducing fertilizer input costs and environmental impact.
Edward S. Buckler is a USDA-ARS Distinguished Research Geneticist and adjunct professor in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University with an educational background in molecular evolution and archaeology. His group's research uses genomic, computational, and field approaches to dissect complex traits and accelerate breeding in maize, sorghum, cassava, and a wide range of other crops. With these technologies applied to over 2000 species, now the Buckler group focuses on exploring ways to re-engineer global agricultural production systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ensure food security, improve nutrition, and respond to climate change. With the USDA-ARS, he leads an informatics and genomics platform to help accelerate breeding for specialty crops and animals. His contributions to quantitative genetics and genomics were recognized with election to the US National Academy of Sciences, recipient of the inaugural NAS Food and Agriculture Award, and the McClintock Prize.
