Rhonda Janke joined the WEAD Board in 2024 and serves as the board secretary. She earned a Master’s of Science and a PhD in agronomy from Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She also has a Master’s in interdisciplinary art from Goddard College. Raised on a farm in central Kansas, she taught organic/sustainable agriculture at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, Kansas State University, Jordan’s Hashemite University, and Sultan Qaboos University in Oman.
Rhonda combines her interest in art and science by making art from fabric that has been buried in soil, which contains pigment left by the bacteria and fungi. The color intensity reflects the health of the soil. She has shown her soil art at small venues in rural Kansas, and more recently at the Centennial Celebration and Congress of the International Union of Soil Sciences. In addition to soil, her materials include hand-made paper, natural dyes/pigments, wool, beeswax, and other materials from her farm in Wamego, Kansas. Her recent research on soil metagenomics (DNA) analysis allows her to add more layers of information about her sites, including soil microorganism abundance and biodiversity.