Rate My Professor Morgan Davis

Morgan P. Davis is an assistant professor in Soil and Environmental Sciences in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri-Columbia's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. His work advances Agricultural and Veterinary Science through research on soil biogeochemistry for ecological sustainability, probing nutrient and carbon cycles in agricultural and forested ecosystems. Core research areas include soil greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, cover crops, tillage management, nitrate leaching, microbial communities, denitrification, indirect nitrous oxide emissions, and riparian buffers. Appointed at the university in 2020, he coordinates the Sustainability Certificate program and collaborates with USDA-ARS and the U.S. Forest Service on field studies like soil remediation for pollinator habitats.

Davis earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Iowa State University in 2018, an M.S. in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2013, and a B.S. from the same institution in 2011. He received the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources 2025 Outstanding Early Investigator Research Award and the Journal of Environmental Quality Outstanding Paper Award. As co-principal investigator on a $25 million USDA climate-smart agriculture project, he contributed to securing $3.5 million in shared grant funding from federal agencies, states, and industry. Davis has published 13 peer-reviewed journal articles, six as first author, cited over 280 times. Select publications are "Effect of nitrogen addition on Miscanthus × giganteus yield, nitrogen losses, and soil organic matter across five sites" (GCB Bioenergy, 2015), "Nitrous oxide and methane production from denitrifying woodchip bioreactors at three hydraulic residence times" (Journal of Environmental Management, 2019), "In situ denitrification in saturated riparian buffers" (Journal of Environmental Quality, 2019), and "Greenhouse gas emissions from row crop, agroforestry, and forested land use systems in floodplain soils" (Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, 2023). An Associate Editor for Agronomy Journal, he has given over 15 academic presentations including invited talks and mentors seven graduate and six undergraduate students.