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Trent Preszler

Trent Preszler

  • Professor of Practice
  • Academic Director of the Dyson Leadership Development Program

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Faculty Area

Faculty Expertise

  • Environmental, Energy and Resource Economics and Policy
  • Sustainable Business
  • Farm and Agribusiness Management

Contact

Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management

tlp24@cornell.edu

463 Warren Hall

Website

Biography

Trent Preszler is a professor of practice in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the recipient of the 2024 Dean’s Distinguished Award for Societal Impact in Teaching. He serves as faculty director of the Dyson Leadership Program and the Thoreau Planetary Solutions Initiative, preparing undergraduate students to address global economic and environmental challenges through systems thinking.

His teaching spans the Dyson Grand Challenges curriculum, including AEM 1101: Dyson Foundations, Business for a Better World, the required first‑year course. He also teaches a writing‑intensive sophomore course in climate‑smart agribusiness and leads senior capstone consulting projects in Peru’s Amazon rainforest, where students work with social-impact organizations.

Preszler’s scholarship and public writing examine how agriculture, forestry and enterprise shape ecological and economic systems. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, The New York Times and Scientific American, and on CBS Sunday Morning. He is the author of Little and Often: A Memoir (William Morrow/HarperCollins), a 2021 USA Today Best Book of the Year, and Evergreen: The Trees That Shaped America (Algonquin Books), longlisted for the 2026 PEN America E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.

He serves on the board of One Tree Planted, a nonprofit supporting global reforestation efforts. Before joining Cornell, Preszler spent two decades in the wine industry as CEO of Bedell Cellars on Long Island and served as chairman of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation and WineAmerica.

Raised on a cattle ranch on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Preszler began his career as a White House intern during the Clinton administration. A former winemaker and wooden boatbuilder, he was the subject of a documentary that won a New York Emmy Award in 2017.

Selected Publications

Awards and Honors

  • PEN America E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Longlist (2026) PEN America
  • Community-Engaged Practice and Innovation Award (2025) David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement
  • Dean's Distinguished Award for Societal Impact in Teaching (2025 - 2027) SC Johnson College of Business
  • Faculty Grant Award (2024 - 2027) Henry David Thoreau Foundation
  • National Book Festival: “Little and Often” (2024) Library of Congress

Recent Courses

  • AEM 2816 - Climate-Smart Agribusiness
  • AEM 1101 - Dyson Foundations: Business for a Better World
  • AEM 5305 - Global Citizenship Seminar
  • AEM 4004 - Grand Challenges Abroad
  • AEM 4003 - Grand Challenges Abroad III

Academic Degrees

  • PhD Cornell University, 2012
  • MS Cornell University, 2002
  • Post-Graduate Diploma The University of Edinburgh, 1999
  • BS Iowa State University, 1998

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