Maria Bowman, Ph.D.

Maria Bowman leads the development of Spark’s Agricultural Nitrogen Program. This program envisions a transformation of how nitrogen is used in agriculture to a system that is more circular, targeted, and efficient, thus cutting nitrogen losses by half while supporting agricultural productivity to meet human needs for healthy diets and food security. 

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Maria takes a transdisciplinary and pragmatic approach to understanding and addressing challenges at the intersection of human well-being, agricultural production, and environmental quality. Prior to joining Spark, Maria served as an Economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. At USDA, she worked across USDA agencies to improve data collection and estimates on the adoption of agricultural conservation practices with greenhouse gas impacts and conducted research on the use and economic impacts of conservation practices such as cover crops. From 2018-2021, Maria served as Lead Scientist for the Soil Health Partnership Program of the National Corn Growers Association that partnered with farmers to trial soil health management practices and collect on-farm data to evaluate the economic and environmental risks and benefits. 

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In addition to her time in government and industry, Maria has held research and project management roles at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Woodwell Climate Research Center, and has tackled diverse topics such as the economics of antibiotic use in U.S. livestock operations, economic issues related to process-based/sustainability labeling, agricultural drivers of deforestation in Brazil, and the economics of smallholder agriculture and natural resource use in Brazil and Mozambique.

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She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.S. in Forestry from Virginia Tech, and a B.S. in Environmental Science from Juniata College. 

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