About the Author

Colby Moorberg, PhD, CPSS, PWS, is an associate professor of soil science in the Kansas State University, Department of Agronomy in Manhattan, Kansas. There, he oversees the Hydropedology and Root Ecology Laboratory which conducts research on hydric soils and soil-and-root interactions in wetland, riparian, and agricultural ecosystems. He teaches AGRON 305 – Soils, AGRON 306 – Soils Laboratory, and AGRON 635 – Soil and Water Conservation. He is also a coach for the Kansas State University Soil Judging Team and serves as the faculty advisor to the Kansas State University Soil and Water Conservation Society. Before joining Kansas State University, Moorberg earned his BS in Environmental Science from Iowa State University. He later completed his MS and PhD in Soil Science at North Carolina State University. Following graduate school, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Washington Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Moorberg advocates open textbooks and develops open education resources for soil science courses, including the Soils Laboratory Manual by Colby Moorberg and David Crouse, which was published by New Prairie Press in (2017, 2019, 2021) and Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography (Moorberg, ed., 2019). He is an Open Education Group OER Research Fellow. He is a member of the National Technical Committee for Hydric Soils, a member of the Soil Science Society of America Soils Certification Committee for the Certified Professional Soil Scientist professional credential, and is an associate editor for Natural Sciences Education. Selected awards include the Soil and Water Conservation Society Outstanding Service Award, the Soil Science Society of America Early Career Award, and the Soil Science Society of America Emil Truog Soil Science Award.