Mat Rogers
Bio
(Please forgive the third person voice. It makes it easy to copy and paste the bio without editing)
Mat Rogers is an ecological engineer and doctoral candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. His dissertation project is a feasibility assessment for the watershed-scale deployment of vegetated agricultural drainage ditches as natural water treatment systems for pesticides in agroecosystems, and has been supported by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and UC Toxics Research and Teaching Program.
He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla (2001) and a M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley (2002), where he specialized in water resources and ecological engineering.
Mat’s academic interests are focused on engineered solutions to water quality issues in the context of the agroecology and ecological design disciplines and constrained by the anthropocene, which creates new bottom lines for engineering projects in terms of capital, energy, and resilience to climate change.
Mat has consulted on projects such as onsite wastewater treatment, intensive permaculture garden design, rainwater recycling, wetland living machines, living roofs, and riparian habitat restoration.
Mat is the executive director of the nonprofit Agrariana and a frequent contributor to the Agrariana blog. His essays can also be found on The Ethicurean and Oakland Local.
Mat attributes his early childhood immersion in the forests, farms, and waters along the Missouri River, near the rural community of Hermann, Missouri, with sparking his interest in natural systems. He currently lives and works in the Piedmont Avenue community of Oakland, California with his wife Jennifer.
