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About Us
Research Ranch Advisory Team
Craig Rasmussen: I grew up in the
City of Orange in the greater Los Angeles area of southern
California. My childhood home occupied what was once extremely
productive agricultural land, and early on we were still surrounded
by operational orange, lemon and avocado orchards. Despite
growing up in a suburban jungle, I developed a strong respect
for nature and the functioning of natural ecosystems through
experiences both at home and abroad. These experiences included
spending a significant amount of time both in the mountains
of southern California, as well as at the coast. I also had
the opportunity to spend summers with my grandparents who
lived in rural Idaho, where they owned 5-acres that they rented
as pasture for cattle. These summers included many trips into
the Sawtooth Mountains to camp and trout fish. After high
school, I attended a small private college in rural southwest
Iowa for two years. This came as a bit of culture shock for
a southern California kid, but greatly expanded my view of
how both people and ecosystems function. I transferred to
the University of California at Davis following where I received
my BS in 1996 in Environmental and Resource Science with an
emphasis in soil science. Following college, I worked for
four years as a Soil Scientist for a company named Terra Spase,
Inc. in Napa CA mapping soils for wine and table grape production.
This work included extensive travel to wine and table grape
producing regions of the US and Mexico and greatly expanded
my view of soils and their importance for agricultural system
production. I returned to the Soil Science graduate program
at UC Davis in 2000 where I worked with Randy Southard and
received my PhD in Pedology in 2004. My dissertation research
focused on the role of mineral surfaces and soil development
in the sequestration and stabilization of organic carbon within
the soil matrix. This work was based along the western slope
of the Sierra Nevada range and encompassed ecosystems ranging
from blue oak woodlands to high elevation red fir forests.
I joined the faculty in the Soil, Water, and Environmental
Science Department as an Environmental Pedologist in January
2005 where I teach Soil Genesis, Morphology, and Classification
and a graduate class in Advanced Soil Genesis. Part of my
current research program follows the work I completed for
my dissertation where we are examining the role of organic-metal
interactions on controlling organic carbon turnover in ponderosa
pine forests of Arizona. In addition, we have projects looking
at the role of aggregation and vegetation in controlling organic
carbon dynamics in a hyperthermic rangeland north of Tucson;
using digital soil mapping techniques to predict soil property
distribution across the landscape at Organ Pipe National Monument;
and quantifying the role of soil development as a controlling
factor of rangeland production in eastern Cochise County.
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