Dr. Leah Windsor

Associate Professor

The University of Memphis

State: TN

About

Dr. Leah Windsor is the Director of the Institute for Intelligent Systems and an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at The University of Memphis. Her research broadly examines how what we say reveals who we are, and her work on regenerative agriculture addresses how farmers think and talk about agricultural changes and stressors. She is a fourth generation farmer with 450 acres of row crops (no-till and cover crops) in Southern Illinois. She served as co-PI on a USDA renewable energy grant and is currently PI on an NCR-SARE grant supporting a regenerative farmer network (Southern Illinois Farmers for Soil Health). She is a frequent collaborator with Understanding Ag and the Soil Health Academy, and was accepted into the 2025 AgLaunch Virtual Bootcamp for an innovative app for farmers. Dr. Windsor is a current member of the Illinois Sustainable Agriculture Partnership’s Soil Health Leadership Program, co-led by the American Farm Trust. She has expertise in mentorship, co-authoring two books (the PhD Parenthood Trap and Chutes and Ladders) and is founded the mentorship network at the UofM in 2019. Dr. Windsor received her Bachelor of Science in Linguistics degree from Georgetown University in 1998, her Master’s degree in Political Science at The University of Memphis in 2005, and her Ph.D. in Political Science from The University of Mississippi in 2012.