Research & Publications

Research Projects

Can integrating grazing and solar energy improve ecosystem outcomes compared to single-use systems?

The transition to renewable energy has raised concerns about the displacement and degradation of agricultural and rangelands, especially with more land-intensive solar energy. My research seeks to understand the ecological impacts of large-scale solar energy development as well as the potential for integrating regenerative livestock grazing and solar energy generation on the same piece of land. These multi-land-use systems have the potential to increase land-use efficiency and achieve a range of benefits across the food-energy-water nexus. I’m collaborating with an interdisciplinary research team to study the ecological and carbon cycling impacts of these systems in the Southeastern United States.

How can we make aviation fuels more sustainable?

For my undergraduate thesis, I studied the potential to create jet fuel from forestry residue to reduce emissions from air travel. Advised by Dr. Eric Larson, I modeled a pathway for converting forestry residue to bio-jet fuel using Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, then evaluated the economics and potential for scale-up. You can read more about that project here.

Publications

Bacon, T., Monlezun, A. C., Hong, M., Macknick, J., de Vries, N., Edwards‐Callaway, L., & Paustian, K. (2025). Agrivoltaic grazing systems for a sustainable future: A multi‐disciplinary review & gap analysis. Earth’s Future, 13, e2024EF005429. https://doi.org/10.1029/ 2024EF005429

Bacon, T., Ohlert, T., Toy, C., Siggers, J. A., & Sturchio, M. A. (2024). Network science can improve the sustainable development of solar energy. Environmental Research: Energy, 1(4), 043002. https://doi.org/10.1088/2753-3751/ad99dc