Robert F. Stallard

Robert F. Stallard is an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, a Scientist Emeritus with the U.S. Geological Survey, and a Research Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. His research integrates geology, biology, biogeochemistry, and geography to investigate earth-surface processes across human and geologic timescales.

His educational background includes a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (1980). Stallard specializes in biogeochemistry, hydrology, and geomorphology, with a focus on climate and land-use impacts on river systems and atmospheric trace gases. Current research addresses physically based modeling of river loads, chemical partitioning in transport pathways, dispersal to coastal environments, and scaling phenomena from local to continental levels using rivers as integrators.

Stallard's work reveals critical patterns in tropical hydrology, particularly how extreme rainstorms drive carbon export in Puerto Rico and how land cover controls runoff in Panamanian catchments. His publications demonstrate consistent focus on field-based studies in humid-tropical regions, emphasizing human impacts on water quality and ecosystem dynamics.

He received the Department of the Interior's Meritorious Service Award (2002) for exceptional contributions to innovative USGS research programs.

Stallard's field investigations in Panama and Puerto Rico involve interdisciplinary collaborations with institutions like STRI and CU Boulder's INSTAAR, utilizing experimental catchments such as the Agua Salud project to study land-use effects on hydrologic processes.