Directory

Ray Dybzinski, PhD

About

A philosopher at heart and a mathematically-inclined ecologist by training, Dybzinski is driven by two passions: a bottomless curiosity to discover why the world is the way it is (and not some other way) and a responsibility to call out and do something about the injustices visited upon humans and non-humans in the petro-colonial-capitalist hegemony. Dybzinski leads his classes with open-minded curiosity and constructive skepticism to co-create with students a state-of-the-art understanding of how the world works (that is always subject to updating in light of new information), along with its implications for the sustainability revolution. He is currently retooling a broad and deep set of research skills and perspectives that he originally developed to learn about the natural world and deploying them in service of community-led research and co-curriculars that address sustainability and justice issues in the food system. In addition, Dybzinski is a visual artist and musician and values diverse ways of discovering and expressing truth.

Degrees

Research Interests

Although trained and adept in the traditional scientific process whereby a researcher comes to understand what is known and not known in the peer-reviewed literature and then develops questions and hypotheses to advance the threshold of knowledge, Dybzinski is adapting that approach to authentically engage community partners in the food system to co-create research objectives. “There is a wealth of lived experience and knowledge possessed by individuals who are doing the work of reimagining what our food system can be,” he said. “I’m excited to humbly leverage all of my hard-won research skills and perspectives – which include study design, data collection, data wrangling, statistics, game theory, plant ecology, and soil ecology – in service of research objectives articulated by community partners in dialogue with me.” Given Dybzinski’s background, topics of particular interest include soil health, the efficacy and sustainability of food production practices, perennial agriculture, and anything involving data or mathematical modeling.

Professional & Community Affiliations

• Grant Reviewer: National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, NSF Long Term Ecological Studies
• Manuscript Reviewer: PNAS, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, The American Naturalist, Ecology Letters, Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Ecological Monographs, New Phytologist, Oecologia, Oikos, Biogeosciences, Theoretical Ecology, Ecosystems, Ecological Modelling, Ecological Research, Biotropica, International Journal of Plant Sciences, Journal of Plant Ecology, The Ecological and Social Consequences of Changes in Biodiversity, Canadian Journal of Botany, European Journal of Soil Biology, The Journal of the
  Torrey Botanical Society, Journal of Management for Global Sustainability

Courses Taught

• ENVS 326: Agroecosystems
• ENVS 280: Principles of Ecology
• ENVS 286: Principles of Ecology Lab

Awards

• Nominated for St. Ignatius of Loyola Excellence in Teaching Award, Loyola University Chicago (2021)
• Nominated for Faculty of the Year, Loyola University Chicago (2017)
• Nominated for Langerbeck Faculty Mentor Award (2017, 2019)

Selected Publications

• Chamberlain, L. A., T. Aguayo, N. J. C. Zerega, R. Dybzinski, and L. M. Egerton-Warburton. 2022. Rapid improvement in soil health following the conversion of abandoned farm fields to annual or perennial agroecosystems. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 6:1010298.
• Dybzinski, R., A. Kelvakis, J. McCabe, S. Panock, K. Anuchitlertchon, L. Vasarhelyi, M. L. McCormack, G. G. McNickle, H. Poorter, C. Trinder, and C. E. Farrior. 2019. How are nitrogen availability, fine-root mass, and nitrogen uptake related empirically? Implications for models and theory. Global Change Biology 25:885–899.
• Landrum, N, R Dybzinski, A Smajlovic, B M Ohsowski. 2016. Managing for Resilience: Lessons from Ecology. Journal of Management for Global Sustainability 3: 75-99.

For a complete list of publications, awards and affiliations, please view his CV.