G. Philip Robertson

Biosketch

G. Philip (Phil) Robertson is University Distinguished Professor of Ecosystem Ecology in the Dept. of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences at Michigan State University. He is also a resident faculty at MSU’s WK Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), where he directs the USDA Long-term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) site. From 2017 to 2021 he was science director for the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, from 1988 to 2016 he directed the NSF Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) program in agricultural ecology at KBS, and from 2008-2011 he served as chair of the U.S. LTER Network. He received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 1980 from Indiana University and his B.A. in 1976 from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is a Fellow of AAAS, the Soil Science Society of America, and the Ecological Society of America, a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher, and has served on a number of editorial boards and national and international advisory committees for NSF, USDA, EPA, DOE, and the National Research Council, among others. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Forestry, and Nutrition Committee and organized and participated in briefings for the U.S. House and Senate Science and Technology and Agriculture Committees. He has also served as an editor for the journals Ecology, Ecological Monographs, Plant and Soil, and Biogeochemistry.

Research Interests

Dr. Robertson’s research focuses broadly on issues of agricultural sustainability at multiple scales, and more specifically on the biogeochemistry of field crop ecosystems and landscapes, with a focus on the plant, soil, and microbial interactions that affect the delivery of important ecosystem services such as climate stability, water quality, and yield. Particular research interests are questions of nitrogen availability and loss, soil carbon dynamics, and fluxes of the greenhouse gases CO2, nitrous oxide (N2O), and methane (CH4). Studies range in scale from microbial to global. At the local scale is work in contemporary field crops such as corn, soybean and wheat and as well in potential cellulosic bioenergy crops such as switchgrass and restored prairie. He asks fundamental questions that inform the design of resource-efficient, high-yielding cropping systems; advance strategies to reduce nitrogen loss from agricultural landscapes; and inform the development of national greenhouse gas mitigation policies. Underlying all of his work is the general aim of understanding the processes that regulate biogeochemical cycles at scales ranging from the microbial to the global.