Rachel is a soil scientist and agroecologist working toward more widespread implementation of biochar as a soil amendment for improving soil health and sequestering carbon. She has worked with universities, state departments of agriculture, USDA NRCS, and American Farmland Trust to expand regenerative agriculture and conservation across the US. She holds a PhD from Virginia Tech with a focus on Agroecology and a dissertation on cover cropping’s role in high-functioning agroecosystems with field studies on fertilizer equivalence of strip-tilled corn production systems. She earned a master’s degree in Entomology and Nematology from the University of Florida with a focus on soil solarization as an alternative soil fumigant. Her undergraduate degree was also at UF where she studied botany, ecology and chemistry. She has taught courses in Agroecology, Soils, and Environmental Science. The diversity of her educational and professional experiences informs her collaborative, interdisciplinary, systems approach to solving complex problems in agriculture.