Jason Neff headshot
Professor
SILC Fellow
jason.c.neff@colorado.edu

Dr. Jason Neff is a Professor in the Environmental Studies program at CU Boulder where he also directs the Sustainability Innovation Lab at Colorado (SILC), intended to accelerate innovative new approaches to sustainable development. Neff received his PhD in Biology from Stanford University (1999) and has been a professor at CU Boulder since 2003.  He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and an introductory environmental science digital text titled ‘A Changing Planet’.  After many years in academic research Neff is now mostly focused on technology innovation and translation into real world impacts. These efforts include programs that develop mobile applications for land planning and agricultural development, cloud-based modeling tools for mobile agronomic decision support and working on new ways to connect research to market-oriented innovation for sustainability.

Education

  • 1999 - Ph.D. Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University

  • 1993 - B.A. Summa Cum Laude. Environmental Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder

Honors and Awards

  • 2017 - College Scholars Award, College of Arts and Sciences, CU Boulder
  • 2013 - University of Colorado System - Excellence in Leadership Program Fellow
  • 2008 - Interdisciplinary Teaching and Residence Life Teaching Award
  • 2004-2006 - A.W. Mellon Foundation, Conservation and Environment Jr Faculty Fellow
  • 2001-2002 - U.S. Geological Survey - Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow
  • 1997-1999 - NASA Earth System Science Pre-Doctoral Fellow
  • 1994-1997 - National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow
  • 1992 - Phi Beta Kappa, University of Colorado at Boulder

Recent Publications

  • Ballantyne, A. P.; Liu, Z.; Anderegg, W. R.; Yu, Z.; Stoy, P.; Poulter, B.; Vanderwall, J.; Watts, J.; Kelsey, K.; Neff, J. Reconciling Carbon‐cycle Processes from Ecosystem to Global Scales. Front. Ecol. Environ. 2021, 19 (1), 57–65. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2296.

  • Ippolito, T. A.; Herrick, J. E.; Dossa, E. L.; Garba, M.; Ouattara, M.; Singh, U.; Stewart, Z. P.; Prasad, P. V. V.; Oumarou, I. A.; Neff, J. C. A Comparison of Approaches to Regional Land-Use Capability Analysis for Agricultural Land-Planning. Land 2021, 10 (5), 458. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050458.

  • Jang, W. S.; Neff, J. C.; Im, Y.; Doro, L.; Herrick, J. E. The Hidden Costs of Land Degradation in US Maize Agriculture. Earth’s Future 2021, 9 (2). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001641.

  • Crawford, J. T.; Hinckley, E. S.; Neff, J. C. Long‐Term Trends in Acid Precipitation and Watershed Elemental Export From an Alpine Catchment of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 2020, 125 (11). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JG005683.

  • Quandt, A.; Herrick, J.; Peacock, G.; Salley, S.; Buni, A.; Mkalawa, C. C.; Neff, J. A Standardized Land Capability Classification System for Land Evaluation Using Mobile Phone Technology. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 2020, 75 (5), 579–589. https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2020.00023.

  • Bae, J. H.; Han, J.; Lee, D.; Yang, J. E.; Kim, J.; Lim, K. J.; Neff, J. C.; Jang, W. S. Evaluation of Sediment Trapping Efficiency of Vegetative Filter Strips Using Machine Learning Models. Sustainability 2019, 11 (24), 7212. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247212.

  • Crawford, J. T.; Hinckley, E.-L. S.; Litaor, M. I.; Brahney, J.; Neff, J. C. Evidence for Accelerated Weathering and Sulfate Export in High Alpine Environments. Environ. Res. Lett. 2019, 14 (12), 124092. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5d9c.

  • Herrick, J. E.; Neff, J.; Quandt, A.; Salley, S.; Maynard, J.; Ganguli, A.; Bestelmeyer, B. Prioritizing Land for Investments Based on Short- and Long-Term Land Potential and Degradation Risk: A Strategic Approach. Environmental Science & Policy 2019, 96, 52–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.03.001.

  • Brahney, J.; Ballantyne, A. P.; Vandergoes, M.; Baisden, T.; Neff, J. C. Increased Dust Deposition in New Zealand Related to Twentieth Century Australian Land Use. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 2019, 124 (5), 1181–1193. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JG004627.

  • Jang, W. S.; Lee, Y.; Neff, J. C.; Im, Y.; Ha, S.; Doro, L. Development of an EPIC Parallel Computing Framework to Facilitate Regional/Global Gridded Crop Modeling with Multiple Scenarios: A Case Study of the United States. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 2019, 158, 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2019.02.004.