Dr. Keith Schilling is the State Geologist of Iowa and Director of the Iowa Geological Survey at the University of Iowa. He has been in his career for over 16 years.
View Schilling’s Google Scholar profile.
Keith Schilling
Rick Cruse
Rick Cruse is a professor in the Department of Agronomy and director of the Iowa Water Center. As director, Rick addresses administrative needs of the Center and is responsible for successful Center operations; he has been Director of the Iowa Water Center since 2006. He served as president of the National Institutes for Water Resources from 2015 – 2016, the professional organization representing the 54 Water Resources Research Institutes across the US and US territories. Rick co-leads the Daily Erosion Project with his primary research focus of soil erosion and water runoff. His passion is the out-of-doors and thrives on getting his five grand daughters involved with hunting and fishing.
View Cruse’s Google Scholar profile.
Brian Hornbuckle
Brian Hornbuckle is a professor in the Departments of Agronomy, Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He is also the Director of Graduate Education for the Agricultural Meteorology Graduate Major, a member of the Environmental Science Graduate Major, and his department’s representative on the Iowa State University Faculty Senate. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental physics and conducts research on satellite remote sensing of Earth’s land surface with an emphasis on observing water stored in plants and soil. Brian has been at Iowa State since 2003. He earned an ScB in electrical engineering from Brown University, an MA in secondary education from the University of Mississippi, and an MSE and PhD in electrical engineering and atmospheric science from the University of Michigan. Brian and his wife Jalene live in Nevada, IA, and have three adult children.
View Hornbuckle’s Google Scholar profile.
J. Gordon Arbuckle
J. Arbuckle is professor and extension rural sociologist at Iowa State University. His research and extension efforts focus on improving the environmental and social performance of agricultural systems. His primary areas of interest are drivers of farmer and agricultural stakeholder action related to soil and water quality. He is director of the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, an annual survey of Iowa farmers, and Chair of the ISU Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture.
View Arbuckle’s Google Scholar profile.
Omar de Kok-Mercado
Omar de Kok-Mercado is the project coordinator for the Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips (STRIPS) and the Consortium for Cultivating Human and Naturally reGenerative Enterprises (C-CHANGE) at Iowa State University. In his role, he coordinates transdisciplinary research and extension activities on prairie strips and regenerative agriculture communicating their impacts on farm livelihoods, soil, water, and wildlife conservation. Omar holds a BS in Agronomy and an MS in Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry, both from Iowa State University. Most recently, Omar led the STRIPS team in writing a national environmental policy for the Conservation Reserve Program, a federal cost-share program for farmers and landowners.
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.
View Beck’s Google Scholar profile.
Linda Shenk
Linda Shenk is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Iowa State University. A humanist by training, she applies her background in storytelling and performance to community engagement and relationship building around issues of land and water conservation. She has worked with and learned alongside urban youth, neighborhood groups, women landowners, hydrologists, climate scientists, engineers, architects, and social scientists. Linda holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Minnesota and a MA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (a place where she lived in a cabin with no running water for 4 years). She lives in Ames with her family and is slowly working to convert more of her yard to water-wise and pollinator-supporting plants.
View Shenk’s Google Scholar profile.