Stephen R. Gliessman earned a BA in botany, an MA in biology, and a PhD in plant ecology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has accumulated more than 40 years of teaching, research, and production experience in the field of agroecology. His international experiences in tropical and temperate agriculture, small-farm and large-farm systems, traditional and conventional farm management, hands-on and academic activities, nonprofit and business employment, and organic and synthetic chemical farming approaches have provided a unique combination of experiences and perspectives to incorporate into this text. He was the founding director of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), Agroecology Program, one of the first formal agroecology programs in the world, and was the Alfred and Ruth Heller Professor of Agroecology in the Department of Environmental Studies at UCSC until his retirement in 2012. He is the cofounder of the nonprofit Community Agroecology Network (CAN) and serves as the president of its board of directors. He is the editor of the international journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.