APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS
INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP
BIOGRAPHY
Stephanie Connolly is the Field Liaison for the Office of Sustainability and Climate. Her portfolio includes acting as a connection between the US Forest Service regional offices and the Washington Office for topics related to climate science. She is also leading the agency in developing a strategy for developing a framework for forest soil moisture monitoring networks.
Stephanie Connolly has served USDA for more than two decades as a soil scientist. She holds degrees from West Virginia University (B.S. in Agronomy – 1995) and Colorado State University (M.S. in Agronomy w/emphasis in Soil Chemistry – 1998).
She initially began her federal career as a journey level soil scientist with the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Preston, Idaho. During that time, she mapped the Bear Lake Wildlife Refuge for the USFWS and then moved on to western North Carolina in 1999 to work on the Smoky Mountain National Park Soil Survey and USFS soil survey contracts on the Nantahala National Forest.
From 2001 to 2020, Stephanie served as the Forest Soil Scientist on the Monongahela National Forest (Elkins, WV). Her area of expertise includes soil carbon management, the effects of atmospheric deposition on soils, and landscape level restoration strategies.