 Rod Venterea is one of several USDA scientists stationed at the University of Minnesota. As a member of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Rod enjoys the best of both worlds offered by the university and the USDA. ARS researchers have the financial backing of the United States Department of Agriculture, and they have the resources of the university at their fingertips. Rod and other researchers often team up with university professors.
Venterea is currently conducting a research study at UMORE Park near Rosemont, where the ARS has held a long-term field site since 1991. ARS researchers are studying a variety of agricultural management practices, including tillage intensities, variations on the corn-soybean rotation, and fertilizers. Rod says, “In theory, it should help to guide policies and recommendations for farming practices that impact the environment.” He is specifically interested in how management practices affect the exchange of nitrous oxide between the earth's surface and the earth's atmosphere.
The challenge of drawing conclusions from research data keeps him interested in coming to work each day. “I like making sense of potentially complicated data sets,” he says. Venterea also enjoys being a member of a scientific community that works to increase our understanding of the world. “We all make incremental advances in answering questions,” he notes.
Rod, who is originally from Massachusetts, studied psychology at Dartmouth during his undergraduate years in college. However, he says he was always interested in science. He was also motivated by a nationwide environmental movement that helped clean pollution during the 1970s. Those factors encouraged him to switch his academic focus, and Venterea pursued a master's in environmental/civil engineering at the University of Massachusetts, where he specialized in remediation of contaminated soil and water. After completing his master's, Rod moved across the country while working in the environmental consulting field. In 1995, he began Ph.D. studies at the University of California-Davis. He graduated in 2000 with a degree in soil science. That same year he won the Emil Truog Award, which is given to one student each year by the Soil Science Society of America.
 After graduation he spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Ecosystems Studies (IES), a nonprofit research institute based in Millbrook, New York. In 2002 he accepted his current position with the USDA and the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate.
One of Venterea's current research studies has a field site in Illinois. The project aims to study how increased carbon dioxide levels might affect crops in the future. To simulate higher levels of C0 2 , the gas is pumped into the surrounding air at the experimental field. The three-year study began in 2005 with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. Rod is working with a professor from the University of Illinois and a third researcher from IES.
Venterea is a member of the Soil Science Society of America and of the American Geophysical Union. He has also supervised a master's student for two years who is examining phosphorous cycling and greenhouse gas emissions in a Minnesota wetland. “That's been a great learning experience for me,” he says.
One of Rod's favorite memories with the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate was an “ice fishing” trip he took with graduate student Erin Berryman and other researchers. The catch of the day was not panfish or walleye, but instead frozen soil cores. The researchers fished cores from a wetland using a device that resembled a power auger. This unique method landed them soil cores that couldn't be obtained while the ground was thawed during other parts of the year.
Away from the job he spends time with wife Rosalie and sons Raffael, 2, and Ricco, 4. Rod has an adventurous commute to campus, biking ten miles each way. He also explores local parks and bike trails. Finally, he tends a garden at home, where one of his specialty crops is the “tomatillo,” a small fruit that grows inside a husk. “They're good for salsa and Mexican food,” Rod says. |
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