Lab News
2025. 6: Dr. Xia gave a talk on “modeling soil carbon and ecosystem outcomes” at Earth Observations: Conversations with Lamont Scientists Series.
2025. 6: Emely Mendez and Tierna Oxenreider started as undergraduate research assistants in Xia’s Lab.
2025. 6: Dr. Xia received a research grant from Columbia Global on “Evaluating the Contributions of Nature-Based Solutions to Protecting Biodiversity and Building Resilient Communities in Rural China” as a Co-PI.
2025. 6: Dr. Xia received a research grant from Conscience Bay Research on “Carbon Monitoring on the Range: Continuing Support for Woodwell Climate Research Center’s Rangeland Program” as the subaward PI.
2025. 5: Jake Cohen started as a summer intern student through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
2025. 4: Margot received the Comer Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship from Columbia College.
2025. 3: Dr. Xia’s first-author paper “Coupling Remote Sensing with a Process Model for the Simulation of Rangeland Carbon Dynamics” was published in Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems: https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004342.
2025. 3: Dr. Xia and Dr. Duan received support from Columbia’s Seed Funding program, which will “Examine the Impact of Land Management on Ecosystem Services in the Hudson Valley Region”.
2025. 2: Dr. Xia’s first-author report “Robust Carbon Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification for Grassland Management in the Great Plains” for National Fish and Wildlife Foundation was published: http://doi.org/10.1575/1912/71403.
2025. 2: Dr. Duan gave a talk on “Agricultural field instrumental and monitoring for irrigation and nitrogen management” at Lamont’s BPE seminar.
2025. 1: Dr. Xia received funding from Columbia’s course support program to develop a fieldwork component for her new Course - Agroecology.
2024. 12: Dr. Xia received a research grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation on “Pilot Monitoring and Reporting System for Tracking Carbon Benefits of Improved Grazing Management in the Northern Great Plains” as the subaward PI.
2024. 12: The paper co-authored by Dr. Xia, titled “Soil Physical Properties and Water Dynamics Under Contrasting Management Regimes at the Morrow Plots,” was published in Soil & Tillage Research: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2024.106422
2024. 12: Dr. Xia received a cooperative agreement from the Department of Agriculture on “Model Intercomparison and Improvement for Assessment of Conservation Management Practices” as the PI. The goal of this project is to work with modelers, farmers, and ranchers to improve the decision support system for U.S. food production.
2024. 12: Dr. Jiaming (Jamie) Duan started as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Xia’s Lab.
2024. 11: Dr. Xia gave a talk on “Climate change mitigation and adaptation through improved soil carbon management” at Lamont’s 75th Anniversary Symposium: Life and Earth.
2024.10: Dr. Xia gave a seminar talk on “Evaluation of soil ecosystem services by coupling modeling tools with multi-scale datasets” at Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B).
2024.10: Dr. Xia gave a seminar talk on “Monitoring soil health and the associated agroecosystem outcomes: Combining in-situ observations with remote sensing data and modeling tools” at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Dutchess, NY. The talk can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YexLrUqvISw&list=PLWoFuak18FGXvk_QHxxiDi9zLxevAe0IT&index=9.
2024.10: Xia’s Soil Systems Lab at Lamont Open House with exhibitions and hands-on activities on “Carbon Secrets: Exploring Soil and Forest Carbon at Lamont Sanctuary Forest”. From left to right in the photo are Alexander Lacayo (Columbia undergrad), Margot Grøtland (Columbia undergrad), Dr. Yushu Xia, Martin Celedon (Columbia M.S. student), and Danielle Kim (high school intern). Special thanks to Prof. Ben Bostick, Prof. Brendan Buckley, Magdaly Sevilla (Columbia M.S. student), and student participants from the SSFRP program for their invaluable contributions in making this exhibition possible.
2024. 10: Dr. Xia gave a guest lecture on “Understanding and Quantifying the Role of Soil Carbon in Forest and Agricultural Ecosystems” in Columbia’s Master in Sustainability Science program.
2024. 9: Cailen Tougher started as a senior thesis student.
2024. 9: Margot Grøtland started as a lab manager.
2024. 9: Dr. Xia received a cooperative agreement from the Department of Agriculture on “Establish and Evaluate a Spatiotemporal Dynamic Soil Property Modeling Framework” as the PI.
2024. 9: Danielle Kim started as an intern student through the Bergen County Academies’ Senior Experience program.
2024. 8: Dr. Xia’s first-author paper “Leveraging Legacy Data with Targeted Field Sampling for Low-cost Mapping of Soil Organic Carbon Stocks on Extensive Rangeland Properties” was published in Geoderma: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2024.116952.
2024. 7: Dr. Xia gave a seminar talk on how she became a soil scientist and covered the basics of soil science at Lamont’s Secondary School Field Research Program.
2024. 7: Dr. Xia gave a seminar talk about soil management at Lamont’s summer lecture series for intern students.
2024. 6: Dr. Xia received a research grant from LDEO Climate Center on “Modeling High-Resolution Soil Health Outcomes Tied to Grassland Management Practices for Hudson Valley” as the PI.
2024. 6: Dr. Xia’s open-source codes on developing the Rangeland Carbon Tracking and Management (RCTM) system were published in Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/11508223.
2024. 6: Dr. Xia’s N2O work was highlighted as “Agricultural management practices evaluated in new nitrous oxide accounting method” in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s ACES News: https://aces.illinois.edu/news/agricultural-management-practices-evaluated-new-nitrous-oxide-accounting-method.
2024. 6: Dr. Xia’s open-source dataset on soil N2O emissions from U.S. agricultural lands was published in Illinois Data Bank: https://doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-9808669_V1.
2024. 6: Dr. Xia’s first-author paper “Estimating Soil N2O Emissions Induced by Organic and Inorganic Fertilizer Inputs Using a Tier-2, Regression-based Meta-analytic Approach for U.S. Agricultural Lands” was published in Science of the Total Environment: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171930.
2024. 5: Dr. Xia gave an invited seminar talk on “A New Frontier: Data-informed soil management in a changing climate” to IBM Research in Westchester, NY.
2024. 5: Dr. Xia’s editorial “Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems Special Section: Improving Livability in Urban Areas: 2 Examining Urban and Peri‐Urban Soil and Plant Management” was published in Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems: https://doi.org/10.1002/uar2.20062.
2024. 5: Dr. Xia received a research grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation on “Develop a Plan to Improve Estimates of Carbon Sequestration in Grasslands” as the subaward PI.
2024. 4: Dr. Yushu Xia gave an invited talk on “Developing a Rangeland Carbon Tracking and Management (RCTM) system using remote sensing imagery coupled with a modeling approach” at the EGU General Assembly 2024 in Vienna, Austria.
2024. 2: Dr. Xia received a research grant from the National Audubon Society on “Quantifying carbon and soil health on Audubon’s Conservation Ranching (ACR) certification ranches” as the PI.
2024. 2: Dr. Xia officially started as a Lamont Assistant Research Professor in the Division of Biology and Paleo-environment at LDEO.
