Stephen Wood

In addition to being an Associate Research Scientist and Lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment, I am a Senior Scientist for Agriculture & Food Systems at The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
 
My expertise is in soil carbon cycling. My work has focused on both the mechanisms of how soil carbon builds and decomposes, as well as on quantifying the agronomic and environmental benefits of soil carbon and organic matter. I work on TNC’s agriculture strategies, where I aim to bringing cutting-edge science to the organizations efforts to use agriculture to promote conservation, climate mitigation, and food production. I was the lead on a SNAPP working group to build targets for managing soils for conservation goals. The group develop the AgEvidence data platform showing the impact of conservation agriculture practices in the US Corn Belt.
 
Before joining The Nature Conservancy, I was a NatureNet Science Fellow with The Nature Conservancy and the Yale School of the Environment. I have a PhD from the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology at Columbia University where I worked with Shahid Naeem and Chery Palm and was part of the Agriculture and Food Security Center at The Earth Institute where I studied the impact of agricultural practices promoted by the Millennium Villages Project on soil nutrient cycling and microbial ecology. I also have a masters from the Yale School of the Environment and a bachelors from The George Washington University.