Kent is an ecosystem ecologist interested in the impacts of global change on soil carbon and nutrient cycling. He is currently working with Dr. Jennifer Blesh in the Soil and Agroecosystems Lab where he uses interdisciplinary approaches to explore how management decisions influence ecological processes such as nutrient retention and soil organic matter dynamics in agroecosystems.

Previously, for his PhD research at Kansas State University and the Konza Prairie Long Term Ecological Research site, Kent used a combination of field studies and analysis of long-term data to investigate rhizosphere interactions and soil biogeochemical cycling in grasslands.