I research and write the composting guidance, feedstock data, and calculator methodology behind compost.tools. The job itself is simple to describe: read the primary literature, work out where it disagrees, and turn that into calculators and plain-language explanations a home composter can actually use.
What "research writer" means here
Let me be upfront about what this byline is and isn't: I'm not a soil scientist, an agronomist, or a certified master composter, and this site doesn't pretend I am. What I bring is diligence and transparency, not a credential. Every figure in every calculator comes from a citable source and is shown with its citation, so you never have to take a number on faith — you can follow it back to the publication it came from and judge it yourself.
I pull from the same sources professionals do: university cooperative extension publications, USDA and EPA datasets (including the EPA WARM model and NRCS soil data), the On-Farm Composting Handbook (NRAES-54), and the US Composting Council's CREF feedstock database.
Editorial standards
Sources disagree more often than you'd expect — the "right" C:N ratio for grass clippings varies widely depending on which publication you check. When they conflict, I show both values here and explain which one the calculators use and why, instead of quietly picking whichever number sounds best. When a source gets revised, I update the affected calculators and pages and refresh their last modified date. You'll find the full source hierarchy, the numbered bibliography, and a table of known disagreements on the methodology page.
Composting is a living process, not an equation. The ranges you see here are representative, not universal constants, and the calculators are meant to give you a defensible starting point — not a guarantee. I say that plainly throughout the site, because pretending otherwise wouldn't actually help anyone.