Dr. Lindsey Slaughter

Associate Professor, Plant and Soil Science Department, Texas Tech University

Dr. Lindsey Slaughter is an Associate Professor of Soil Microbial Ecology and Biochemistry in the Department of Plant and Soil Science in the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. She joined the faculty at Texas Tech in 2016. She received her Ph.D. in Soil Science from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY in 2016, her MS degree in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Kentucky in 2012, and her BS degree in Natural Resource Management from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2010. Dr. Slaughter conducts research and teaches introductory and advanced courses in soil science and soil microbial ecology, and was recently awarded the 2023 Davis College Teaching Award.

She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Soil Biology and Biochemistry (S03) division of the Soil Science Society of America Journal, and was selected as a 2022 Outstanding Associate Editor for the journal. She is an active member of the Soil Science Society of America, and was recently elected to serve as the incoming chair of the S03 division for the ASA-CSSA-SSSA annual meetings in 2024. She also serves as a Technical Specialist for the Soil Health Institute in the Texas High Plains region to assist growers with questions related soil health management and soil ecology.

At Texas Tech University, the TTU Soil Ecology Lab (https://www.depts.ttu.edu/pss/slaughterlab/index.php) conducts research that helps understand how plant-microbe-soil interactions are linked to improving soil health and sustainability in semi-arid environments. An example of this is a project that investigates how soil microbial communities contribute to greenhouse gas fluxes in sustainable pasture ecosystems, and how these dynamics are regulated by forage management and nitrogen availability. This specifically examines the controls on methane fluxes in semi-arid pasture soils, and how including legumes as a source of slowly-available mineralized nitrogen in soils potentially creates a stronger soil sink for methane that can help mitigate the climate impact of animal agriculture. In addition to investigating fundamental relationships between plants and soil microbes and how these contribute to ecosystem functioning and response to land management, her work seeks to help reverse soil degradation and create resilient, climate-smart agricultural systems through enhanced biological networks and plant-soil interactions.