Allegra is a soil biogeochemist researching potential for agricultural soil management to contribute to mitigating global climate change. Her work combines modelling, synthesis, and empirical studies to understand limitations and opportunities for managing land to enhance agricultural resilience and CO2 removals from the atmosphere. She began at LLNL as a graduate student using radiocarbon to study transit time of soil organic carbon in the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. After graduating with her PhD from UC Berkeley, she worked as a postdoc to lead the author team of the soils and cropland chapter of the LLNL-led national Roads to Removal report.

PhD, Biogeochemistry, University of California Berkeley, 2021

B.A., Integrated Science, Environmental Science, Earth and Planetary Science, Northwestern University, 2013

Selected publications

For a full list, see: Google Scholar| ORCID

 

 

Mayer, A. C., K.J. McFarlane, and W.L. Silver. 2024. The effect of hurricane disturbances on soil organic carbon cycling over three decades in a tropical forest. Global Change Biology, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17265.

 

Mayer, A. C., Basso, B., Dumortier, J., Hellwinckel, C., Hong, M., Mayfield, K. K., Paustian, K., Pett-Ridge, J., Robertson, G. P., Stanley, A. L., Swan, A., Zhang, Y., & Slessarev, E. W. 2023. Potential for CO₂ Removal and Storage in United States Cropland Soils (Chapter 3; Roads to Removal). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. https://roads2removal.org/wp-content/uploads/03_RtR_SoilCarbonInCropland.pdf

 

Pett-Ridge, J., M. Ashton, S. E. Baker, B. Basso, M. Bradford, H. Breunig, A. Bump, I. Busch, E. Rodriguez Calzado, J. W. Chirigotis, M. Ducey, J. Dumortier, N. C. Ellebracht, R. Gil Egui, A. Fowler, K. Georgiou, H. Goldstein, D. Hayes, C. Hellwinckel, S. Hovorka, E. Hunter-Sellars, W. Kirkendall, S. Kuebbing, P. Lamers, M. Langholtz, M. Layer, R. Lewis, W. Li, A. Mayer, K. K. Mayfield, P. Nico, S. H. Pang, K. Paustian, G. Peridas, H. Pilorge, S. Ponomareva, L. Price, P. Psarras, G. P. Robertson, J. W. Sagues, D. Sanchez, C. Scown, B. M. Schmidt, E. W. Slessarev, A. J. Stanley, A. Swan, C. Toureene, A. A. Wong, E. Woods, M. Mba Wright, Y. Zhang, R. D. Aines, Roads to Removal: Options for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the United States. December, 2023, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Roads2removal.org

Vendig, I ., Guzman, A., De La Cerda, G., Esquivel, K., Mayer, A.C., Ponisio, L., Bowles, T. M. 2023. Direct yield benefits of soil carbon increases quantified using cover cropping trials. Nature sustainability.

 

Slessarev, E., A. Mayer, C. Kelly, K. Georgiou, J. Pett-Ridge, E. Nuccio. 2022. Initial soil organic carbon stocks govern changes in soil carbon: reality or artifact? Global Change Biology, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16491.

 

Pett-Ridge, J., M. Ashton, S. E. Baker, B. Basso, M. Bradford, H. Breunig, A. Bump, I. Busch, E. Rodriguez Calzado, J. W. Chirigotis, M. Ducey, J. Dumortier, N. C. Ellebracht, R. Gil Egui, A. Fowler, K. Georgiou, H. Goldstein, D. Hayes, C. Hellwinckel, S. Hovorka, E. Hunter-Sellars, W. Kirkendall, S. Kuebbing, P. Lamers, M. Langholtz, M. Layer, R. Lewis, W. Li, A. Mayer, K. K. Mayfield, P. Nico, S. H. Pang, K. Paustian, G. Peridas, H. Pilorge, S. Ponomareva, L. Price, P. Psarras, G. P. Robertson, J. W. Sagues, D. Sanchez, C. Scown, B. M. Schmidt, E. W. Slessarev, A. J. Stanley, A. Swan, C. Toureene, A. A. Wong, E. Woods, M. Mba Wright, Y. Zhang, R. D. Aines, Initial Considerations for Large-Scale Carbon Removal in the United States: Description of Methods, Feedstocks, and Constraints, March, 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LLNL-TR-832805

Mayer, A. & W.L. Silver. 2022. The climate change mitigation potential of California annual grasslands under future climates. Ecological Applications.  https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2705.

 

Silver, W.L., T. Perez, A. Mayer, A. Jones. 2021. The role of soil in the contribution of food and feed. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0181.

 

Schrumpf, M., K. Kaiser., A. Mayer, G. Hempel, S. Trumbore. 2021. Age distribution, extractability, and stability of mineral-bound organic carbon in central European soils, Biogeosciences, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2020-212.

 

Mayer, A., Z. Hausfather, A.D. Jones,  W.L. Silver. 2018. The potential of agricultural land management to contribute to lower global surface temperatures. Science Advances, 4(8), eaaq0932. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq0932

Silver, W. L., S. E. Vergara, and A. Mayer. 2018. Carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation potential of composting and soil amendments on California’s rangelands. California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, California Natural Resources Agency. Publication number: CNRA-CCC4A-2018-002, Sacramento, CA.

 

 

• LLNL Global Security Gold Award, 2024
• LLNL Lawrence Graduate Research Scholar, 2017-2021
• UC Agriculture and Natural Resource Division Carbon Neutrality Initiative Fellow, 2017
• DAAD Study Fellow, 2013-2014