Rattan Lal, PhD, is a Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and is the founding Director of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration at the Ohio State University. He has served as Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, Australia, and Soil Physicist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria, and is Professor of Soil Science at Ohio State University (1987 to date).

Professor Lal has authored or co-authored over 1000 refereed journal articles and more than 550 book chapters; he has written and edited or co-edited more than 100 books, and has mentored 115 graduate students and 182 visiting scholars from around the world.

He holds the Chair in Soil Science and is the Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainability Issues for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, and a member of the 2021 United Nations Food Security Summit Science Committee and Action Tracks 1 and 3. He is past President of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation, the International Soil and Tillage Research Organization, the Soil Science Society of America, and the International Union of Soil Sciences. Dr Lal is a laureate of the GCHERA World Agriculture Prize, the Glinka World Soil Prize, the Japan Prize, the US Awasthi IFFCO Prize, the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award, the World Food Prize, and India’s Padma Shri Award.

Professor Lal has received an Honoris Causa degree from nine universities throughout Europe, USA, South America, and Asia; the Medal of Honor from UIMP, Santander, Spain (2018); the Distinguished Service Medal of the International Union of Soil Sciences (2018); and is a fellow of the five professional societies.

He is an honorary member of the Moldova Academy of Sciences and a member of the Academia Europaea. He is a recipient of the Presidential Award of the Soil Science Society of America and the IPCC-Nobel Peace Prize Certificate. The Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, named its Soil Science and Agronomy building as Rattan Lal Laboratories in 2020.