International Nitrogen Initiative appoints Dr. Claudia Wagner-Riddle as Director of the North America regional chapter

Dr. Claudia Wagner-Riddle, Editor-in-Chief, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology and Professor, School of Environmental Sciences University of Guelph, has been appointed as Director of the North American regional chapter of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI). Dr Wagner-Riddle will be joining the INI North American Chapter with Dr. Peter Groffman, Microbial Ecologist | Ph.D., 1984, the University of Georgia who was appointed Deputy Director. Their appointment was approved by the INI Steering Committee, is honorary in nature and will be valid for three years, starting September 1, 2020.

In this role, Dr. Wagner-Riddle will report on the strategies and developments within her region, providing an internationally coordinated approach to achieve the INI aims.

INI is an international program, set up in 2003 under the sponsorship of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) and from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). The key aims of the INI are to:

• optimize nitrogen’s beneficial role in sustainable food production, and
• minimize nitrogen’s adverse effects on human health and the environment resulting from food and energy production.

The program is currently a sustained partner of Future Earth.

Garth Whyte, President and CEO at Fertilizer Canada, said:

“We are delighted to hear the news of Dr. Wagner-Riddle’s appointment as Director of the North America regional chapter of INI, and extend our best wishes to Dr. Groffman as well. Dr. Wagner-Riddle creates impacts that extend beyond Canada and enables knowledge transfer and collaborations at an international level.”

Over Dr. Wagner-Riddle’s research career, she has authored or coauthored over 136 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Her Google Scholar h-index is 36 (29 since 2015). She is lead author on an original article about nitrous oxide (N₂0) emissions induced by freeze-thaw cycles, recently published in Nature Geoscience, an international journal with a very high impact factor.

Dr. Tom Bruulsema, Chief Scientist of Plant Nutrition Canada, said:

“Having served on advisory committees for several of Dr. Wagner-Riddle’s past graduate students, I can attest to her world-class research expertise in assessing both the beneficial and adverse impacts associated with nitrogen management in agriculture. I look forward to continued collaboration with her diligent research team.”

During the past six years, she supervised six post-doctoral research associates. Post-doctoral projects included several assessing 4R Nutrient Management practices for their impact on N₂0 emission, net greenhouse gas balance, and crop productivity. A large part of her career has contributed to the development of agrometeorological methods relevant to an international application.

Dr. Claudia Wagner-Riddle, Editor-in-Chief, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology and Professor, School of Environmental Sciences University of Guelph, said:

“I am honoured to have been selected for this position and I look forward to working with Dr. Groffman and the INI steering committee to advance INI’s goals. It is extremely important to have stakeholders such as Fertilizer Canada on board to achieve the goals of improved nitrogen use efficiency and to minimize the impact of nitrogen use on the environment”.

Source: Fertilizer Canada