Elaine Ruth Ingham

Elaine Ruth Ingham, groundbreaking microbiologist and a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement, died on Monday in Fort Mill, South Carolina, with her husband by her side. She was 73 years old.

Ingham was known for her soil science research that developed the concept of the soil food web. She championed the critical role of microorganisms in building healthy, sustainable ecosystems. As a researcher, educator, and mentor, her pioneering studies and advocacy empowered farmers, scientists, and environmentalists worldwide to restore and sustain soil health.

Ingham’s work, including dozens of research papers published in scientific journals in the 1980s and 1990s, brought her to an early understanding of the importance of soil microbiology for plant health. Her influential popular publications include the Soil Biology Primer, published by the Natural Resources Conservation Services Soil Quality Institute, with the well-known image of the soil food web used by educators around the world to discuss the role of microorganisms in soil.

In addition to her paradigm shifting research in the field of soil science, Ingham popularized the teaching of microscopy and the making of compost and compost tea through business and educational endeavors that included the Soil Food Web school. She was also an energetic and easy to understand public speaker at agricultural and soil ecology gatherings around the world.

Ingham was born in 1952. She attended St. Olaf College where she met her husband, the nematologist Russell Ingham, and graduated in 1974. She earned her Master of Science in Microbiology from Texas A&M and her doctorate degree from Colorado State University. She moved to Corvallis, Oregon in 1986, so that she and Russell could join the faculty of Oregon State University, where she remained associated until 2002.

Ingham will be remembered by her many soil science and farmer students as someone who advocated for soil health as environmental and public health, and who explored and remained ever fascinated by the soil’s web of life.

She is survived by her husband, two children, two grandchildren, and a grand dog.

To continue her life’s work, her family requests planting a tree or making a donation to the Soil Food Web Foundation . A celebration of life will be planned for a later date.