Dr. Marty Matlock is a Professor in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. He served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at USDA from 2021-2022 focusing on food systems resiliency. Prior to that he was Executive Director of the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center which addresses food, water, and community resiliency in response to climate change. Matlock was elected to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Board of Agricultural and Natural Resources in 2021.

​

Matlock received his Ph.D. in Biosystems Engineering from Oklahoma State University, and is a registered professional engineer, a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer, and a Certified Ecosystem Designer. His research focuses on the impacts of humans on the environment, working at the watershed scale. He has developed indicators of nutrient enrichment in rivers and streams, an index for ecosystem services change, and sustainability metrics for water, land, energy, and climate change for agricultural systems. He is a global leader in crop and animal production modeling and life cycle assessment, focusing on greenhouse gas emissions. Matlock has advised more than 40 M.S. and a dozen Ph.D. students over the past 25 years. He has co-authored more than 80 peer reviewed manuscripts and five books. Matlock holds four U.S. patents and authored the ASABE/ANSI S629 Standard for Sustainable Agriculture.

Matlock is the recipient of the 2018 CAST-Borlaug Agriculture Communications Award, the American Ecological Engineering Society 2022 Odum Award, and more than 30 national and international design awards. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation, where he served as Chairman of the Cherokee Nation Environmental Protection Commission for 16 years. He is a sustainability science advisor for three environmental conservation organizations and more than a dozen food and agricultural product companies.