Rate My Professor Tom O'Halloran

Dr. Tom O'Halloran is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation at Clemson University, stationed at the Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science in Georgetown, South Carolina. He earned a B.A. in Environmental Sciences in 2001, an M.S. in 2004, and a Ph.D. in 2008, all from the University of Virginia. Following his doctoral studies, O'Halloran conducted postdoctoral research at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and the Department of Forest Ecosystems & Society at Oregon State University. He joined Clemson University as an Assistant Professor and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor.

O'Halloran's research quantifies carbon, water, energy, and greenhouse gas exchanges between the land surface and the atmosphere to understand ecosystem responses to climate change and the climatic effects of land management activities. He primarily studies forests and wetlands using environmental sensors on towers, drones, and satellites. His academic interests include forestry, wetland ecology, greenhouse gas fluxes, carbon sequestration and cycling, biometeorology, biogeophysics and albedo radiative forcing, disturbances and land management, bioenergy feedstocks, and aerosols. As an expert in biometeorology, his work elucidates human influences on climate and supports the development of carbon sequestration projects and natural climate solutions. Key publications include Liu et al. (2025), 'Potential for augmenting water yield by restoring longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests in the southeastern United States,' Water Resources Research; Nelson et al. (2024), 'X-BASE: the first terrestrial carbon and water flux products from an extended data-driven scaling framework, FLUXCOM-X,' Biogeosciences; O'Halloran and Seyfried (2023), 'Plant traits and marsh fate,' Nature Geoscience; Puhlick et al. (2022), 'Perspectives: Carbon markets might incentivize poorer ecological outcomes in longleaf pine ecosystems,' Forest Ecology and Management; Bright et al. (2017), 'Local temperature response to land cover and management change driven by non-radiative processes,' Nature Climate Change; and numerous others.