Robert B. Harrison will focus on sustainable feedstock production for the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance project. As a professor of forest soil and environmental sciences at University of Washington, Dr. Harrison works on sustaining and increasing long-term forest productivity and biomass production systems through nutrient management and amendments. A Soil Science Society of America Fellow, he has studied nutrient, heavy-metal, and pathogen movement in soils; the impacts of compost, biosolids wastewater, and fertilizer additions on soil/plant systems; the use of organic wastes as soil amendments; and the impacts of forest fertilization and management on forest soil properties and carbon sequestration.
Before joining UW, Dr. Harrison worked as visiting professor for the State University of Sao Paolo and the Federal University of Viçosa, both in Brazil. He was also a Peace Corps volunteer and subdistrict forestry officer in Karatu, Tanzania.
Dr. Harrison earned his Ph.D. in Soil Chemistry from Auburn University in 1985.