Rate My Professor Rich Conant

Rich Conant is the Interim Dean of the Warner College of Natural Resources and Professor and Head of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University. An ecosystem ecologist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, his research examines feedbacks between human activities and ecosystem biogeochemistry, with a focus on how land use and land management practices influence carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural and grassland ecosystems. He participates in national and international efforts to quantify human impacts on the carbon cycle and develops indicators of ecological condition and tools for assessing ecosystem services to inform decision-making and policy on climate mitigation.

Conant earned a Ph.D. in Botany (Ecology) from Arizona State University in 1997, with a dissertation titled 'Carbon pools and fluxes along a semiarid gradient in Northern Arizona,' and a B.A. in Environmental Biology from the University of Colorado in 1990. His career at Colorado State University exceeds 25 years, starting as a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory in 1998, followed by positions as Research Scientist (2000-2006), Joint Assistant Professor in Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship (2001-2010), Associate Professor (2010-2013), Professor (2013-present), Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in Warner College (2013-present), Department Head (2020-present), and Interim Dean (2026-present). He has received awards including the Warner College Distinguished Scientific Research Award (2008), Queensland Smart Futures Fellowship (2010), WCNR/ESS Publication Award (2015), CSU College of Agricultural Sciences Research Team Award (2016), and shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as an IPCC contributor. Conant served as Editor for Biogeosciences (2011-2016) and Subject Editor for Global Change Biology (2010-present), and holds numerous committee roles in curriculum, executive, and graduate programs at CSU. Key publications include 'Greenhouse gas mitigation potentials in the livestock sector' (Nature Climate Change, 2016), 'Temperature and soil organic matter decomposition – synthesis of current knowledge and a way forward' (Global Change Biology, 2011), 'Patterns and trends in nitrogen use and nitrogen recovery efficiency in world agriculture' (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 2013), and 'Sensitivity of organic matter decomposition to warming varies with its quality' (Global Change Biology, 2008).