
Jessica Chiartas
PhD, Soils & Biogeochemistry, UC Davis
UC Davis, California Soil Resource Laboratory
Jessica Chiartas has a passion and drive for translating learnings from the food and agricultural sciences into practice. She believes the key to identifying and creating solutions to global grand challenges from human to environmental health lie in the way we manage our soils and food and agricultural systems, at large. She works with diverse multi-stakeholder groups to develop comprehensive programs that adapt agricultural best practices on the basis of soil type, climate, and cropping system, and monitor and evaluate the impact. Chiartas sees her work as the catalyst to uniting a global community in tackling the formidable challenge of feeding 10 billion people on fewer acres with a smaller footprint, amidst climate uncertainty.
Chiartas’ pioneering research at UC Davis and the California Soil Resource Lab has investigated the long-term impacts of agriculture on soil carbon (C), soil health and ecosystem services. During her PhD, she has also collaborated with scientists and statisticians at UC Berkeley and within the OpenTeam network, represented UC Davis in the California Farm Demonstration Network, participated in the ASA-CSA-SSSA Climate Task Force to inform the Biden administration on climate and agriculture, led the Measurement Workstream for a Google Food Lab Accelerator, and worked with multiple external organizations to develop effective monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) protocols.