Wes Jackson, the founder and president of The Land Institute, is a leading researcher, educator, and proponent of ecologically-based agriculture. Prior to founding The Land Institute, he established and served as chair of one of the first environmental studies programs at California State University-Sacramento. Jackson is the author of several books, including New Roots for Agriculture, Becoming Native to This Place, Consulting the Genius of the Place, and most recently Nature as Measure. He was named a Pew Conservation Scholar in 1990 and a MacArthur Fellow in 1992, and he received the Right Livelihood Award in 2000. He holds a BS in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, Salina, an MS in botany from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University.