Bill Fox, Ph.D., associate professor, extension range specialist and director of the Center for Natural Resources Information Technology, has served the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and Texas A&M AgriLife Research for roughly three decades. Despite the varying positions held across the two agencies, as well as the Texas Water Resources Institute, a singular focus has shaped Fox’s work—providing meaningful tools and solutions to land managers.
“What drives me is trying to solve problems for people who make decisions on the ground,” Fox said. “I absolutely live and breathe the land-grant mission.”
His diversity of research and collaboration reflect the complexity of natural resources management, as well as his own interest.
“It’s a cliché, but I’m a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none,” Fox said with a laugh. “My publications are a menagerie of subjects because everything that has to with natural resources management intrigues me.”
From antimicrobial resistance research to mechanical treatments for land restoration to landowner motivations behind management and everything in between, Fox’s impact spans the discipline of rangeland management.
For 20 years, Fox served on the Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable, an alliance of nongovernmental organizations, public and private land management professionals, rangeland scientists and university researchers focused on advancing rangeland science and public understanding of its social, economic and ecological complexity.
Fox was the lead author of the organization’s pioneering publication, “An Integrated Social, Economic and Ecologic Conceptual Framework for Considering Rangeland Sustainability.”
“We graphically illustrated how the socioeconomic and the biophysical components of ecosystems interact,” Fox said. “The framework provides a context in which to think about how rangeland sustainability indicators affect and are affected by each other, and how ecological states and processes interact with social and economic states and processes.”
In addition to his service on the Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable, Fox boasts an extensive list of professional affiliations and leadership appointments including the Society for Range Management, Texas Section-Society for Range Management, The Wildlife Society, Ecological Society of America, Soil and Water Conservation Society and National Grazing Lands Coalition. He holds both the Fellow Award and Outstanding Achievement Award from the Texas Section-Society for Range Management.
Currently, Fox teaches the introductory course, Principles of Rangeland Management Around the World.
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