Dennis Keeney

Dennis R. Keeney (born 1937) is an American scientist in soil science and water chemistry. He grew up on his family's dairy farm near Runnells, Iowa, graduated from Iowa State University with a BS in agronomy, took an MS in soil science at the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in agronomy and biochemistry at Iowa State. He became a professor of agronomy and was on the faculty in soils and water chemistry for more than twenty years. In 1988 he became the first director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State, which developed research and teaching on the environmental impacts of farming, sustainable agriculture and soil and water quality, and he retired from it in 1999. He examined the energy balance of corn ethanol in 1988 and later questioned the biofuel boom, was president of the Soil Science Society of America in 1988 and of the American Society of Agronomy in 1993, and has published over 140 peer reviewed papers. His memoir The Keeney Place appeared in 2015.