Keith Paustian
Dr. Keith Paustian is a Professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and Senior Research Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. He received his BSc and MSc at Colorado State University, and a PhD in Systems Ecology and Agricultural Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. A major focus of his work involves modeling and field measurement of greenhouse gas emissions from land use activities. Research activities include developing methodology for agricultural emission sources, used in the US national greenhouse gas inventory; development of web-based tools for estimating on-farm greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and carbon sequestration, used by USDA; and developing methods for estimating greenhouse gas inventories in developing countries. Professional service includes serving as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Methods and the 2003 IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry GHG inventories. He recently served on a 2010 National Academy of Science panel evaluating greenhouse gas measurement methods and verification issues. He served as a member of the US Carbon Cycle Science Steering Group, which provides expert input to Federal Agencies involved in climate and carbon cycle research. He serves on the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Steering Committee for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) and the Soil Science Society of America Greenhouse Gas Working Group.
Joel Swisher
Rich Conant
Dr. Richard Conant is an ecosystem ecologist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, associate director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability, and associate professor in the newly-formed Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University. He is also a Professor and Smart Futures Fellow at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane Australia. His research focuses on understanding the feedbacks between human activities and ecosystem biogeochemistry. Specifically, he is interested in how land use and land management practices impact carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural and grassland ecosystems. Dr. Conant has worked closely with scientists from diverse disciplines to understand the characteristics of scientific information that best informs decision making, and has worked to integrate those conclusions into his own research. He is a participant in national and international efforts to quantify human impacts on carbon cycling. Dr.Conant earned his Ph.D at Arizona State University in 1997.
Steve Ogle
Dr. Stephen M. Ogle is a Research Scientist and Associate Professor at Colorado State University. Dr. Ogle focuses on research dealing with biogeochemical processes related to greenhouse gas emissions from Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU), and is an expert on research and application of greenhouse gas inventory methods. He serves as lead compiler for the US national inventory for soil C and N2O emissions from agricultural lands, in addition to the US national representation of land. He has been a lead author on syntheses and reports prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2006 National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidelines and Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change).
Mark Easter
Mark Easter is a Senior Research Associate at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory. He works on greenhouse gas inventories in land use, focusing on agriculture and forestry. Mark contributed analysis to multiple IPCC reports on greenhouse gas inventory methods, and has worked on national-level inventories of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and forestry in the United States, Brazil, Kenya, Jordan, India, Spain and Italy. He is currently the technical lead for the Carbon Benefits Project, an initiative funded by the Global Environmental Facility that is building decision support systems for sustainable land use projects to use in evaluating their greenhouse gas balance. Mark has been developing greenhouse gas decision support systems since 1999, and it remains a principal focus in his work. He earned a M.S. in Botany with an emphasis in Forest Ecology at the University of Vermont in 1991.
Amy Swan
Amy Swan is a Research Associate at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. She has worked on a variety of research projects that evaluate the impacts of agricultural management and land use change on greenhouse gas cycling in ecosystems. She has contributed to the EPA National Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the last several years, as well as supported development of web-based tools to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from farms in the U.S. and sustainable land management projects in the developing world. Ms. Swan has extensive experience applying the Century Ecosystem Model to a variety of agricultural ecosystems. In her MSc thesis research, she evaluated the socio-economic and environmental factors that affect adoption of carbon sequestering agricultural conservation practices in the U.S. and nitrous oxide emissions associated with those practices. She received a BSc in Environmental Management from South Dakota State University and MSc in Ecology at Colorado State University.