William Beck

Billy Beck is the Extension Forestry Specialist (State Specialist) with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, and is responsible for forestry education and extension programming across all of Iowa’s 99 counties. He also holds research and teaching appointments in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management. His research and extension programming focus heavily on the impacts that trees, forests, and forest / riparian management have on water quality and flood mitigation within Midwestern watersheds. Billy has been with ISUEO since 2019. He holds degrees from Michigan State University (B.S., Forestry), Southern Illinois University (M.S., Forest Hydrology), and Iowa State University (Ph.D., Environmental Science). Billy lives south of Nevada, IA, with his wife, two cats, and one motorcycle.

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Emily Zimmerman

Emily Zimmerman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management and Global Resource Systems in the Department of Horticulture. Emily’s research interests focus on understanding the relationship between land use and ecosystem services in working landscapes. Recently, Emily’s work has focused primarily on evaluating placement, costs, and environmental outcomes associated with spatially targeted best management practices in agricultural landscapes. In addition to her research, Emily teaches several courses, including Natural Resource Policy, and has co-led study abroad and travel courses on four continents. Emily has been in her current role since August 2019. She holds a BS in Biology and Global Resource Systems from Iowa State University, a MS in Natural Resources and Environment from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Science from Iowa State University.

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Matthew Helmers

Matt Helmers is the Director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, the Dean’s Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University, where he has been on the faculty since 2003. Dr. Helmers’ research areas include studies on the impact of nutrient management, cropping practices, drainage design and management, and strategic placement of buffer systems on nutrient export from agricultural landscapes. He has a regional Extension program working to increase adoption of practices that have the potential to reduce downstream nutrient export. Matt grew up in Sibley, IA and spent substantial time on his grandparent’s farm growing up and was actively engaged in showing cattle.

Chaoqun Lu

Chaoqun (Crystal) Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at ISU. Her research addresses how natural and human disturbances have affected and will affect ecosystem processes, agricultural food production, greenhouse gas fluxes, and nutrient movement from land to water bodies, by using a systems approach, ecosystem modeling, and data-model assimilation. Her current water-related work includes modeling the coupled hydro-biogeochemical cycling, estimating land-to-aquatic nitrogen loading in agriculture-dominated watersheds, and predicting the effectiveness of nutrient reduction practices under the changing climate. Her work has led to 77 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals such as Nature, Global Change Biology, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, and so on, with an H-index of 39. Crystal lives in Ames with her husband, two daughters, and a dog.

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Kristie Franz

Dr. Kristie Franz is a Professor of Hydrology and Chair of the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University.  She teaches courses in surface water hydrology, water resources, and hydrologic modeling and maintains an active research program. Kristie has been investigating streamflow prediction for nearly 20 years with the goal of improving forecasting methods for more accurate and informative hydrologic forecasts. Her work also includes advancing the understanding and modeling of the coupled effects of climate and human impacts on watershed processes, including the development and application of a socio-hydrologic model to explore land and water management under future climate conditions. Other recent work includes an interdisciplinary effort to foster interaction between stakeholders through use of an agent-based model designed to support collaborative action towards improving watershed conditions. She holds a MS in Hydrology and Water Resources from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. Kristie lives in north Ames with her husband and two kids in a house that sits on one of the highest points above the Skunk River floodplain in the area.

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Nicole Hashemi

Nicole Hashemi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University. Her research interests are in the areas of microfluidics and materials. She has been the recipient of the NSF EAPSI Fellowship, NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, NRL Research Publication Award, Big 12 Faculty Fellowship Award, and 2017 ISU Early Career Engineering Faculty Research Award. She has also been selected as both National Academy of Engineering US Frontiers of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science. Professor Hashemi has published over 80 journal and peer-reviewed conference articles, and presented several invited keynote, national, and international lectures.

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Guiping Hu

Dr. Guiping Hu is an Associate Professor in the department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Iowa State University. She received her MS and PhD degrees from University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include mathematical modeling and data analytics with applications in supply chain design, decision support systems, energy systems analysis, and sustainable agriculture. She has published over 60 journal papers and her research has been supported by NSF, DOE, USDA, and DOD.

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John Tyndall

John Tyndall is an associate professor of natural resource economics at Iowa State University where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in resource economics, agroecosystem analysis, and forest management as part of the Department of Natural Resource Ecology & Management and the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture. John’s research and that of the students in his lab weaves economic and social analysis into trans-disciplinary work examining the capacity of agriculturally dominated landscapes to produce broader arrays of ecosystem and hydrologic services while maintaining economic viability at field, farm, and regional scales. Working with talented students and colleagues, John’s research has been expanding into integrated financial and spatial modeling so as to create innovative decision support tools for conservation planners and farmers alike. John lives in Ames, Iowa with his wife and two kids.

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