Karrie Lynn Pennington has been working with the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, studying the impacts of land-use on water ecosystems since 1992. She studied biology at the University of North Texas, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, and completed a Master of Science in Soils from the University of Idaho in Moscow. She taught as a visiting professor at the same university until moving to Tucson, Arizona, where she taught for 3 more years. She received her Ph.D. in Soil and Water Science, .and moved east to the Mississippi Delta, completing her postdoctoral studies with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service.