Harold van Es is a professor in the Section of Soil and Crop Sciences at Cornell University and served as its department chair. He served as president of the Soil Science Society of America in 2016. He has authored over 220 papers and has educated thousands of professionals and students on sustainable soil and crop management. He is the lead developer of the Cornell Soil Health Initiative, two commercialized digital technologies for crop nitrogen management, and spatially balanced designs for field experiments. In recent years, he studied solar energy technologies and their role in agriculture and community development in developed and developing countries. Over his 40-year career at Cornell, he conducted projects in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. He is a Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America and the American Society of Agronomy, and his work has been recognized through numerous awards from scientific and professional organizations.