Diane Rowland
Expertise
🚜 Agriculture, 🕸Ecology, 🍞 Food security, 👩🌾 Gardening, 🪴 Horticulture, 🚿 Irrigation, 🏞 Land and natural resource use, 🌿 Organic food production, 🧹Pollution response, 🟫 Soils, 💧Water quality
Rowland is a crop physiologist who pioneered new techniques to improve crop resilience in response to water scarcity. She has worked to advance an agroecology-inspired management of working landscapes. Agroecology integrates the sciences of agriculture and ecology to balance the demands of resource conservation, food productivity, profitability and society.
As dean and director, she leads a research enterprise that powers transdisciplinary solutions inspired by Maine with global impact and played a critical role in UMaine’s recent R1 designation. She also oversees academic programs that foster health, natural resource, social science professionals for Maine’s workforce.
Rowland has also advanced transdisciplinary research through facilitating unique external partnerships, including the Wyman’s Wild Blueberry Research and Innovation Center. She has also led initiatives to rename the college and cultivate an environment for faculty, staff and students grounded in principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and access.
Appointment details
Rowland’s work is supported by:
- The College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture
- Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station
