About Us

Who are the people behind EnvironmentalBiophysics.org? We are a group of scientists passionate about measuring the environment. Our day job is to design new environmental sensors and improve existing ones for our customers. Sensors we’ve developed are routinely used to gather data all along the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. We even have a sensor sitting on Mars (more about that later). Contributors to the articles on EnvironmentalBiophysics.org include:

Gaylon S. Campbell

Dr. Gaylon S. Campbell has been a research scientist and engineer at METER for 16 years following nearly 30 years on faculty at Washington State University.  Dr. Campbell’s first experience with environmental measurement came in the lab of Sterling Taylor at Utah State University making water potential measurements to understand plant water status.  Dr. Campbell is one of the world’s foremost authorities on physical measurements in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.  His book written with Dr. John Norman on Environmental Biophysics provides a critical foundation for anyone interested in understanding the physics of the natural world.   Dr. Campbell has written three books, over 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and has several patents. He is a recipient of the prestigious Fellow Award for outstanding scientific contributions from both the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA).

Colin S. Campbell

Dr. Campbell has been a research scientist at METER for 14 years following his Ph.D. at Texas A&M University in Soil Physics.  He is currently serving as Vice President of Research, Development, Engineering, and Software.  He is also adjunct faculty with the Dept. of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University where he co-teaches Environmental Biophysics, a class he took over from his father, Gaylon, 14 years ago.  Dr. Campbell’s early research focused on field-scale measurements of CO2 and water vapor flux but has shifted toward moisture and heat flow instrumentation for the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and irrigation management. He recently received the prestigious Fellow Award for outstanding scientific contributions from the American Society of Agronomy (ASA). His latest work is focused on combining remote sensing and in situ data to provide a more complete picture of water availability to crops.

Douglas R. Cobos

Dr. Cobos is a Research Scientist and the Director of Research and Development at METER.  He also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University where he co-teaches Environmental Biophysics.  Doug’s Masters Degree from Texas A&M and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota focused on field scale fluxes of CO2 and mercury, respectively.  Doug was hired at METER to be the Lead Engineer in charge of designing the Thermal and Electrical Conductivity Probe (TECP) that flew to Mars aboard NASA’s 2008 Phoenix Scout Lander.  His current research is centered on instrumentation development for soil and plant sciences.

Christopher P. Lund

Dr. Christopher Lund is a research scientist and product manager for METER’s new irrigation management instrumentation group. He has more than a decade of experience working with land surface flux measurements, terrestrial water budgets, and soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer scheme modeling. Prior to joining Decagon, he served as a research scientist on the NASA-CSUMB SIMS (Satellite Irrigation Management Support) Project, a multi-year collaboration between the California Department of Water Resources, NASA, and CSU Monterey Bay providing California growers with novel irrigation decision support tools. Dr. Lund’s current research focuses on developing cost-effective irrigation management instrumentation for commercial markets.

Lauren Bissey Crawford

Lauren Crawford has been the product manager of the soil moisture sensor line at METER for seven years.  She earned her masters in Hydrogeology at Washington State University.  Her early Ph.D. work in ecology at Washington State University and her background in environmental biophysics and hydrology help her to work with METER research scientists and engineers to develop soil moisture sensors and data loggers targeted to solve specific problems in agriculture and environmental research.

Leo Rivera

Leonardo Rivera, METER’s Hydrology Product Market Manager, earned his undergraduate degree in Agriculture Systems Management at Texas A&M University, where he also got his Master’s degree in Soil Science.  There he helped develop an infiltration system for measuring hydraulic conductivity used by the NRCS in Texas. Currently, Leo is the force behind application development in METER’s hydrology instrumentation including Hyprop and WP4C. He also works in R&D to explore new instrumentation for water and nutrient movement in soil.

Chris Chambers

Chris Chambers is the Agriculture and Environmental Application Specialist at METER.  Chris earned a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Illinois in 1995 and spent the next 6 years as a vagabond.  After traveling the world and having many fantastic experiences, he returned to his studies as a graduate student and pursued research in physiological ecology and biogeochemistry.  He completed an M.S. in Forest Resources before METER put his skills and experience to work to support our customers and help them get the data they need.

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