Dr. Paul J. Hanson has over 36 years of professional research experience conducting environmental effects studies related to energy technologies and their use. His expertise focuses on the physiological, growth, and biogeochemical cycling responses of woody plant ecosystems, and has encompassed research on acid rain, nitrogen deposition, mercury deposition, ozone effects on woody plants, and environmental and atmospheric change effects associated with precipitation change, elevated CO2 atmospheres, and warming. Dr. Hanson is known for developing field-scale manipulative experimental infrastructures.

Dr. Hanson received the 1995 Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in December 2020.