Xue Bai is a postdoctoral research associate at the Nelson Institute Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE). Her research interests are generally in soil biogeochemistry and natural climate solutions, with a particular emphasis on investigating the role of soil carbon in mitigating consequences of changes in climate and land use.

Xue joined the Gibbs Land Use and Environment Lab in April 2023. Working closely with Dr. Tyler Lark, her current research primarily focuses on building a new, harmonized global dataset of soil carbon and land transition to improve the accuracy of the global models in analyzing greenhouse gas emissions as a result of land use change. She is also working on a project aiming to assess the realistic cropland soil carbon sequestration potential from conservation practices.

Prior to joining the Gibbs Lab, Xue obtained her Ph.D. in Forest Resources from the University of Maine in 2021. Her research activities during her doctoral program centered on estimating organic carbon in Maine soils from publicly available soil datasets, including SSURGO, FIA, and RaCA. She also modeled mitigation potential of soil carbon sequestration under long-term biochar amendments and future climate projections. The overall outcome provides credible references for landowners, stakeholders, and researchers to better understand C budget issues and simulate how soil organic carbon varies under different climate scenarios.

In her free time, she enjoys reading, watercolor painting, cooking, and spending time with her cat Soda.