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Contact Info

Email: ddruckenbrod [at] rider.edu

Phone Number: 609-895-5422

Department: Department of Natural and Health Sciences

Office Location: Mike and Patti Hennessy Science and Technology Center

Additional Info:

Academic Focus: Environmental Sciences

Background Information

Dr. Daniel Druckenbrod holds the rank of Professor of Environmental Sciences and currently serves as the Chair of the Department of Natural and Health Sciences. He is the 2025 recipient of the Dominick A. Iorio Faculty Research Prize and an appointed member of New Jersey’s One Health Task Force.

In his research, Dr. Druckenbrod uses tree rings, computer models, historical documents, and geographic information systems (GIS) to study how forests and their environments change over centuries. His projects include studies of forests at historical sites, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon Plantation and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Plantation. He is also researching the historical connection between Rider University's woods and Aldo Leopold during his time in Lawrenceville in the early twentieth century. He has collaborated on a National Science Foundation grant examining the growth and water use of eastern deciduous forests in response to acid rain and climate change. He is currently collaborating on a National Science Foundation grant investigating past climate change from tree rings across Australia and southeast Asia. He also encourages students to participate in his research or to develop research projects on environmental sciences topics. Previous student projects have led to presentations at regional and national scientific conferences.

Dr. Druckenbrod received his Ph.D. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 2003. Before joining Rider University in 2009, he was an Instructor of Biology at Sweet Briar College in 2001, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Environmental Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 2003 to 2005, and an Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences at Longwood University from 2005 to 2009. Dr. Druckenbrod previously served as the Director of Rider University's Sustainability Studies Program from 2012 to 2021, Chair of the Department of Geological, Environmental, and Marine Sciences from 2021 to 2022, and Chair of the Department of Earth and Chemical Sciences from 2025 to 2026. 

Primary Teaching Responsibilities

  • Introduction to Environmental Sciences
  • Introduction to Sustainability Studies
  • Weather and Climate Change
  • Field Methods and Data Analysis
  • Global Biogeochemistry
  • The Environment: A Conflict of Interest (Honors Course)

Selected Publications

(For a complete list of publications, please see Daniel Druckenbrod’s Google Scholar or ResearchGate profiles).

  • Druckenbrod, D.L., and D. Norton. 2025. Tree rings, forest composition, and LiDAR reveal historical forests and past agricultural land use at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 49: 101–119, https://doi.org/10.1177/03091333251319962
  • Malcomb, J.D., Epstein, H.E., Vadeboncoeur, M.A., Druckenbrod, D.L., Lanning, M., Wang, L., Asbjornsen, H., and T.M. Scanlon. 2025. Divergent water-use efficiency trends among eastern North American temperate tree species. Oecologia 207: 137, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-025-05753-w
  • Nguyen, H.T.T., R. Abernethy, R. Wilson, D.L. Druckenbrod, K.J. Allen, B.M. Buckley, E.R. Cook, R. D’Arrigo, J.G. Palmer. 2025. Correcting the heartwood-sapwood transition in blue intensity measurements with change point detection methods. Dendrochronologia 91: 126336, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2025.126336
  • Druckenbrod, D.L., E.R. Cook, N. Pederson, and D. Martin-Benito. 2024. Detrending tree rings in closed-canopy forests for climate and disturbance history reconstructions. Dendrochronologia 85: 126195, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2024.126195
  • Romulo, C., B. Venkataraman, S. Caplow, S. Ajgaonkar, C.R. Allen, A. Anandhi, S.W. Anderson, C.B. Azzarello, K. Brundiers, E. Blavascunas, J. Dauer, D.L. Druckenbrod, E. Fairchild, L.R. Horne, K. Lee, M. Mwale, J.A. Mischler, E.E. Pappo, N.S. Patel, N.D. Sintov, C.S. Ramsdell, and S. Vincent. 2024. Implementing interdisciplinary sustainability Education with the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11: 928, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03332-7
  • Druckenbrod, D.L., D. Martin-Benito, D.A. Orwig, N. Pederson, B. Poulter, K.M. Renwick, and H.H. Shugart. 2019. Redefining temperate forest responses to climate and disturbance in the eastern United States: New insights at the mesoscale. Global Ecology and Biogeography 28: 557-575. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12876
  • Druckenbrod, D.L., F.D. Neiman, D.L. Richardson, and D. Wheeler. 2018. Land-use legacies in forests at Jefferson’s Monticello Plantation. Journal of Vegetation Science 29: 307-316, https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.12599
  • Druckenbrod, D.L. 2017. Rediscovering Aldo Leopold’s Big Woods. New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 3: 47-73, https://doi.org/10.14713/njs.v3i1.65
  • Druckenbrod, D.L., H.H. Shugart, and I. Davies. 2005. Spatial pattern and process in forest stands within the Virginia piedmont. Journal of Vegetation Science 16: 37-48, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1654-1103.2005.tb02336.x
  • Druckenbrod, D.L., M.E. Mann, D.W. Stahle, M.K. Cleaveland, M.D. Therrell, and H.H. Shugart. 2003. Late-eighteenth-century precipitation reconstructions from James Madison’s Montpelier plantation using dendroclimatic and meteorological diary data. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84: 57-71. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-84-1-57