Keith Shepherd is with the World Agroforestry Centre, where he leads the centre’s research and development theme on Land Health Evaluation, Restoration and Investment Decisions, and serves as a Principal Soil Scientist. His research focuses on land health surveillance – an evidence-based approach to measuring and monitoring land/soil health, and improving stakeholder decision-making through decision analysis. Keith has pioneered a Soil-Plant Spectral Diagnostics Laboratory at the Centre for high throughput analysis of soil and plant samples using only light (infrared, x-ray and laser spectroscopy).
The lab is supporting the Africa Soil Information Service and a network of spectral laboratories in national and development institutions across the tropics. He also co-leads Regenerating Degraded Landscapes in the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems. His research on decision analysis focuses on use of Bayesian approaches and value-of-information analysis to improve development decision-making in data-limited environments.
With 40 years’ experience in tropical land management, Keith has also worked with Hunting Technical Services; the University of Reading, the International Rice Research Institute, the International Centre for Research in the Dry Areas, and the former University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. He holds a BSc in Soil Science and PhD in Agricultural Botany, both from the University of Reading.