Rising Stars: Q&A with Joey Blankinship
Joey Blankinship, associate professor of Microbial Biogeochemistry, is the founding director of the Desert Agriculture Soil Health Initiative (DASHI). His research crosses biology, chemistry, physics and engineering to find ways to improve soil and plant health, restore ecosystem functions, and sustain desert agriculture. Learn how his focus changed around the time he arrived at University of Arizona in our Conversations with Rising Stars…
What initially attracted you to the current focus of research?
I have been passionate about playing in dirt, doing science and being outdoors since I was a small child growing up in Virginia. It is no surprise I became a soil ecologist. However, I mainly studied “pristine” natural ecosystems for the first 15 years of my career. It was not until I lived in the Central Valley of California that I saw the true scale and importance of agriculture. I began feeling dissatisfied with studying natural ecosystems after realizing the importance of food production in agricultural systems. Almost overnight, I became motivated to transfer my knowledge and perspectives of soil ecology in natural ecosystems to the many challenges faced in agroecosystems, including water scarcity. When I accepted my position at the University of Arizona in 2017, just as the term “soil health” was gaining broad attention across society, I had no doubt about the direction I wanted to go.
How have collaborations impacted my work on campus?
Collaborations have been key to my success. The biggest agriculture in Arizona, on which North America depends to produce fresh, nutritious vegetables during the fall and winter, is in Yuma. Without collaborations with dear colleagues at the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture (YCEDA) and Cooperative Extension, I never would have been able to build the connections and credibility with crop producers in Yuma. These collaborators have also been essential for me to fully understand the challenges and research needs of these stakeholders. Collaborations with both industry and other world-class scientists at the University of Arizona are essential for scaling up solutions for agricultural sustainability to the real world. The 40% of the Earth’s land surface that is already arid or semiarid is responsible for producing roughly 60% of the world’s food. This presents an epic challenge to address as the global human population increases and climate change continues to make water scarcer. Team science is needed now more than ever.
Research breakthroughs take time, so what keeps you motivated in your daily duties?
There are three main things that keep me motivated daily. The first is my children. My 4-year-old twins motivate me every day to “save the world”. During the next century and beyond, we must find ways to continue to produce nutritious food in an environmentally sustainable manner despite climate change. The second motivation is other passionate people. Although rigorous science is the backbone of what I do, I care less and less about the science and more and more about the great people who want to make a difference in how we produce food in an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable manner. These people continue to inspire me, whether they are students, other university faculty, or in government, industry and nongovernmental organizations. We’re all in this together. The final thing that keeps me motivated is the real-world interest in soil health. Soil is now a movie star with more and more documentaries and attention given by the biggest companies and philanthropic organizations in the world. As I’ve heard it said, there is a growing realization that “we need to stop treating soil like dirt.”
What about your experience at UArizona makes you want to continue your career as a Wildcat?
Because the University of Arizona is the premier land-grant university in the Desert Southwest, I have the opportunity to work in teams to develop solutions that can enhance human wellness and food security on a global scale. I also have the opportunity to work internally at UArizona with a concentrated breadth and depth of faculty disciplinary expertise. For example, when I was a postdoctoral researcher in the University of California system, expertise was much more spread out across the state and, therefore, more difficult to access and integrate.
When you describe your research to someone for the first time, what’s one major point you hope they understand?
Human health depends on soil health.