2024 INNOVATIVE SPEAKERS

Extraordinary agronomic, crop, and soil science professionals that will energize and motivate you.

Additional innovative speakers will be posted here as they are confirmed; check back regularly for those announcements!

 

Opening Keynote Speaker

Susan Crow Photo

Professor Susan Crow brings technical expertise and leadership to diverse tables for land-based climate action and (re)perpetuating landscape resilience with formal training in soil biogeochemistry and ecology. Her current research aims target metrics for soil carbon, organic matter, and holistic aspects of health and the circular economy in Hawaiʻi and beyond. The Hawaiʻi-based research group explores measures for soil health in tropical/subtropical systems and their meaning to place-based land managers, producers, and practitioners. As a member of the Hawaiʻi delegation to the US Climate Alliance, Dr. Crow also assists with designing science-based incentives programs and policy based on best approaches to achieve meaningful climate benefits. Currently, she is building a soil health and ecosystem resiliency research and training lab at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa that is grounded in equity and interwoven innovation pathways.

"Rebuilding Health, Resilience, and Equity in Hawaiʻi’s Agroecosystems"

We envision transformation within Hawaiʻi’s agroecosystems, guided by innovative, contemporary science from both Western and Indigenous ways of knowing to address multiple, pressing challenges posed by climate change. Leveraging emergent AI approaches fills long-term and spatial data gaps in Hawaiʻi’s underinvested regions and communities. These approaches support data-driven modeling of soil health and carbon resources that leads to insight discovery and subsequent application in reduced-complexity and process-based agroecosystem models for broad-scale resource mapping and forecasting. Further, employing spectroscopy-coupled machine learning, the Hawaiʻi-based research group is developing a rapid, affordable place-based soil health assessment. Operationally, Hawaiʻi’s climate-smart commodities market will be scaffolded by decision support that optimizes for system-level benefits that rebuild health, resilience, and equity in agroecosystems. Our hope is for an AI-driven systems-level assessment tool that centers the ecosystem, cultural, social, and economic benefits of climate-smart practices encompassing soil health and the climate benefit of sequestration.

 

Agronomic Science Foundation Lectureships

 

CSSA Plenary / Betty Klepper Endowed Lectureship

Daniel Stone Photo

Daniel Stone is a writer on science, history, and adventure. He is a former senior editor for National Geographic and a former White House correspondent for Newsweek. His first book, The Food Explorer, was a national bestseller and selected as the American Horticulture Society’s book of the year. The Food Explorer is currently in development for a TV series. His book, Sinkable, released in 2022, is about shipwrecks, the deep sea, and the strange underworld of shipwreck obsession.

Daniel is an occasional contributor to The Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Smithsonian, and has presented at the National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor of environmental science and policy at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches environmental communication, history, and storytelling.

A lover of science and the outdoors, he enjoys running, baseball, and is part of a competitive book club. He lives in Santa Barbara with his wife and two sons, one of whom is a dog.

"Presentation TBD"

 

 

SSSA Plenary / Nyle C. Brady Frontiers of Soil Science Lectureship

Doug Ming Photo

Doug Ming is an emeritus planetary (soil) scientist and former Chief Scientist for Exploration in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA Johnson Space Center.  He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Soil Science from Colorado State University and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University.  Doug is currently a science team member and a co-investigator for the Mars Curiosity rover. He was a science team member on the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rover missions and a co-investigator for the 2007 Mars Phoenix Scout mission.

Doug’s research interests include geochemistry, mineralogy and aqueous alteration processes on Mars and Earth. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, including the lead author of a paper in the journal Science that describes the first detection of the elements necessary for life in sedimentary rocks examined by the Curiosity rover on Mars. He was the recipient of the Jackson Soil Chemistry and Mineralogy Award.

"Presentation TBD"