I’m a soil scientist, ecologist, and educator drawn to the quiet, powerful ways land holds stories. My work explores how soil, water, and people shape each other, and what that means for the future of agriculture, conservation, and climate resilience. I hold a Master’s and PhD in agroecosystems and soil science from Mississippi State University, where I focused soil health, water quality, and integrated agricultural landscapes.
I currently live in Colorado and work as a Research Scientist at Colorado State University, where I study soil health, water conservation, and agroecosystem resilience across working lands in the Rocky Mountain West. I collaborate with farmers, ranchers, nonprofits, businesses, and agencies to understand what healthy soil looks like in practice, especially under drought pressure and an increasingly unpredictable climate. I do much of this work through my leadership role at the Integrated Rocky Mountain Region Innovation Center for Healthy Soils (IN-RICHES), a transdisciplinary soil health center focused on creating systems-level change to scale regenerative practices across the region.
Through my business Zinneissa, I also consult with organizations and producers who want to make sense of soil data and land-based outcomes. I offer services designing field trials and management plans, ecological assessments, interpreting monitoring results, thinking through soil’s role in broader landscape change, and connecting the science with real decisions.
I believe science is most powerful when it grows from relationships — with land, with people, and with the questions that keep us curious.
Read more about my current projects here.