J. Richard Hess is the Biomass Program Technology Manager for the Idaho National Laboratory (INL).  Richard comes from a farming background, and graduated in 1992 with a Ph.D. in Agricultural Plant Sciences from Utah State University.  Following graduation, Richard served as an Agriculture Congressional Science Fellow in U.S. Senate working on biomass and agricultural R&D policy issues.  At INL, Richard’s research interests are centered on biomass feedstock production and supply systems for biorefining.  Richard has been at INL working biomass supply and agriculture systems issues for 15 years.

Dr. Sylvie Brouder is a Professor of Agronomy in the Agronomy Department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN and Director of Purdue’s Water Quality Field Station. She received her B.A. in Biology from Harvard University (1985) and her Ph. D. in Ecology from the Ecology Graduate Group at the University of California – Davis (1993). At Purdue, her area of specialization is crop mineral nutrition with an emphasis on rhizosphere ecology, crop ecology, water quality, and nutrient balances and losses in agro-ecosystems. She has expertise in analysis of large spatio-temporal datasets, application of mechanistic simulation models, and development/interpretation of soil and tissue diagnostics. Dr. Brouder has research experience in cotton, rice, corn, soybean, and alfalfa production systems. Dr. Brouder’s research interests include design/implementation of field and controlled environment experiments on nutrient budgets and plant-soil nutrient cycling processes. She has focused on nitrogen, carbon and potassium, evaluating agricultural systems and management practices with respect to their practicality, ecological viability and sustainability, including influences on surface/groundwater quality and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils. Current research at the WQFS is an interdisciplinary, team effort to understand the production and environmental implications of the U.S. biofuel agenda.                                                     

Matt Liebman is a Professor of Agronomy and the Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Prior to joining ISU in 1998, Matt was on the faculty of the University of Maine. He received a B.A. in biological sciences from Harvard University (1978) and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of California-Berkeley (1986), and is a co-author of "Ecological Management of Agricultural Weeds," published by Cambridge University Press. His research, teaching, and outreach activities focus on ways to use ecological processes to reduce dependency on agrichemicals and fossil fuels.