Dr. Sarah Allard is the Executive Director of the Soil Health Center at the University of California San Diego, and a Project Scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Department of Pediatrics. She is a microbial ecologist who studies the role of the microbiome in a range of environments, including the human body, agricultural plants and soils, and natural reserve systems. She has an extensive background in food safety and microbiology, having worked at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and completed her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland in plant science and public health.

The Soil Health Center brings together scientists from 11 departments at UCSD to study the complex role of soils in food security and climate mitigation and to develop solutions based on microbiology, chemistry, engineering, plant science, economics, and social science in collaboration with farmers and land stewards. With the Soil Health Center, she is working to rapidly and meaningfully improve the state of the world’s soils through interdisciplinary innovation and community engagement.