Our Team | Greg Thoma, Ph. D.
Contact: [email protected]
Director of Agricultural Modeling and Lifecycle Assessment
Greg Thoma, Ph.D. is the Director of Agricultural Modeling and Lifecycle Assessment for the AgNext program at Colorado State University. He is leading efforts at stakeholder engaged, experimentally verified, model development for sustainable animal agriculture systems. Dr. Thoma served on the steering committee from 2014-2019 on the Swiss National Science Foundation’s National Research Program titled, “Healthy Nutrition and Sustainable Food Production” that has the goal of promoting healthy nutrition through a safe, high quality food supply, available in sufficient quantity at affordable prices, while minimizing environmental impacts and fostering efficient resource utilization.
He recently retired after a 28-year career in Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas where he served as inaugural Director for Research of The Sustainability Consortium and Director for Research for the University of Arkansas Resiliency Center. He has worked in sustainable food systems since 2008 and has led numerous food and agriculture life cycle assessment projects: milk, cheese, milk delivery systems, yogurt, swine, poultry, corn, fruits and vegetables, pulses, and beef.
He is the North American subject editor for Agriculture for the International Journal of Lifecycle Assessment and has served on the scientific/technical/organizational committee for numerous international LCA conferences. He has been active with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership since its inception serving as the Technical Advisory Group Lead/Co-lead for development of the poultry, swine, and large ruminants’ guidelines.
Recent Publications:
- Agyemang, P., Kwofie, E. M., Lahaye, L., Otis, M., Fontaine, E., Payne, A., & Thoma, G. (2026). Green gains: the development of next-generation dairy feed additives through a multidimensional sustainability lens. Journal of Environmental Management, 398, 128557.
- Thoma, G. J., Galina Pantoja, L., Linhares, D. C., Serafini Poeta Silva, A. P., Case, L., & Knap, P. W. (2025). The effects of PRRS on the environmental impact of pig production: a life cycle assessment study. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 12, 1625581.
- Agyemang, P., Kwofie, E. M., Lahaye, L., Otis, M., Fontaine, E., Asselstine, V., Payne, A., & Thoma, G. (2025). Global analysis of nutritional strategies to mitigate the environmental impact of dairy production: the case of supplementing diets with microencapsulated B vitamins.Sustainable Production and Consumption.
- Morrissey, K. G., Henderson, A. D., Zimmerman, J., Thoma, G. (2025). Spatially explicit freshwater eutrophication potential (EP) from water resource recovery facility (WRRF) discharge and mitigation opportunities in the U.S. Journal of Cleaner Production.
- Park, J. H., Boo, J. Y., Kim, M. H., Ok, Y. S., Jeong, J., Thoma, G., & Hong, Y. (2025). Sustainable removal of gaseous Hg0 using sulfur functionalized biochar: Adsorption experiment and life cycle assessment. Chemosphere, 373, 144158.
- Kékedy-Nagy, L., Morrissey, K. G., Anari, Z., Daneshpour, R., Greenlee, L. F., & Thoma, G. (2025). Sustainable electroless nutrient recovery from natural agro-industrial and livestock farm wastewater effluents with a flow cell reactor. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 212, 107972.
- Kékedy-Nagy, L., Morrissey, K., Anari, Z., Daneshpour, R., Greenlee, L., Thoma, G. (2024). Sustainable electroless nutrient recovery from natural agro-industrial and livestock farm wastewater effluents with a flow cell reactor. Resources, Conservation and Recycling.
- Vargas, J. J., Menezes, T. C., Auvermann, B., Derner, J. D., Thoma, G., Hales, K., Johnson, K., Leytem, A., Place, S., Plaut, J.,& Stackhouse-Lawson, K. R. (2024). Net zero initiative in US beef and dairy systems: integrative on-farm recommendations for greenhouse gas reduction. Environmental Research Communications, 6(10), 101010.
- Henderson, A. D., Asselin-Balençon, A., Heller, M. C., Burek, J., Kim, D., Lessard, L., Thoma, G., … & Jolliet, O. (2023). Spatialized Life Cycle Assessment of Fluid Milk Production and Consumption in the United States. Sustainability, 15(3), 1890.
- Putman B, Rotz CA, Thoma G. (2022). A comprehensive environmental assessment of beef production and consumption in the United States. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2023;402:136766.