Bio
John Field is a R&D Staff Member in the Bioresource Science & Engineering Group within the ORNL Environmental Sciences Division. He studies the performance of bioenergy systems and carbon dioxide removal approaches at the intersection of ecosystem modeling, life cycle assessment, and sustainable land use planning. His expertise is in using process-based ecosystem models such as DayCent to evaluate the effect of biomass feedstock production on ecosystem carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions. He is a member of the , and leads a shared research objective on soil carbon modeling across the four DOE-funded . He has previously contributed to the chapter of the , the , and was a reviewer for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine report on . His research has been highlighted in , , , , and . Specific research interests include:
Bioenergy system modeling—Notable publications explore bioenergy landscape design for soil carbon sequestration () and how carbon capture and storage could improve the mitigation value of bioenergy compared to alternative natural climate solutions (). John has also worked on , pyrolysis and gasification systems that , modeling , and .
Role of bioenergy in decarbonization—Since joining ORNL, John has had the opportunity to work on large, collaborative projects exploring the roles of biomass supply and bioenergy production in national and global-scale decarbonization scenarios, including:
- Exploring how through the Decarbonizing Energy through Collaborative Analysis of Routes and Benefits (DECARB) project.
- Contributions to the Agriculture, Sustainability & Looking Forward chapters of the .
- Linking with the E3SM model to explore the .
Enhancing soil carbon storage—John currently leads an ORNL LDRD project on the role of plant root exudation in soil carbon cycling, with activities including:
- Fieldwork to identify across a diverse population of black cottonwood (P. trichocarpa) maintained by CBI.
- Sampling and metabolomic analysis of root exudates in the same system.
- Linking process-based soil carbon models to automated laboratory and measurements to facilitate iterative model-experiment (ModEx) synthesis.
John was previously a research scientist at the Colorado State University . He earned his PhD from Colorado State University Department of Mechanical Engineering, co-advised by Dr. (Dept. of Mechanical Engineering) and Keith Paustian (Dept. of Soil & Crop Sciences). There he had the opportunity to collaborate with crop scientists, ecologists, and economists as a fellow in the NSF IGERT program. Prior to that, John received his BSc from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, and spent several years in the private sector doing R&D on small-scale solid oxide fuel cell power systems.
When John isn’t writing or coding, he likes to be hiking, skiing, or trying to keep up with his red heeler puppy.
Awards
2015 Sustainability Leadership Fellowship through the CSU School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES)
2012 Outstanding Graduate Research Award, American Society of Agronomy (ASA) Environmental Quality Section: Biochar Community
2011 C2B2-Chevron Graduate Fellowship, Colorado Center for Biofuels and Biorefining
Education
Colorado State University, PhD, 2015.
Case Western Reserve University, BSc, 2005.