About the Author

Tyson Ochsner grew up near Chattanooga, Oklahoma, USA, in farming family, whose history is partly described here (link). He earned a B.S. in Environmental Science at Oklahoma State University in 1998. He then studied Soil Science and Water Resources at Iowa State University earning a M.S. in 2000 and a Ph.D. in 2003. From 2003 through 2008, he worked as a soil scientist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in St. Paul, Minnesota. Since 2008 he has been a faculty member in the department of Plant and Soil Sciences at Oklahoma State University. The mission of his soil physics research and teaching program is to help people better understand and appreciate the soil, the soil water balance, and the surface energy balance so that we can more wisely manage and conserve the land and water with which we have been entrusted. To learn more about his program, please visit http://soilphysics.okstate.edu/. Tyson and his wife, Stephanie, have five children: Audrey, Isaac, Annelise, Eli, and Abel. You can read about one of their great family adventures at this blog (link).