CURRENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Jeff Skousen is Extension Reclamation Specialist and Professor of Soil Science in the Division of Plant and Soil Sciences in the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Sciences. His responsibilities are split among 65% Extension, 20% Teaching, and 15% Research.
Dr. Skousen's main responsibility in extension is to develop an educational program for the state in the area of reclamation of disturbed soils. He accomplishes this through consultations, seminars, and workshops with research faculty, state regulator agencies, and industry personnel, and personnel within the Cooperative Extension Service. Specific duties in extension involve providing information on acid mine drainage, coal overburdens, acid soils, and revegetation to coal mine operators and regulatory agencies.
He also provides support in soil conservation and water quality activities in the State. He coordinates the Land Judging Program in West Virginia. He helps to organize faculty at WVU in various colleges to address mining and reclamation problems, secures funding through external sources, and prepares educational programs (through workshops and written materials) for coal industry personnel, researchers, and students.
His service to the State and region is mostly an extension of his position as Land Reclamation Specialist and his work with state water quality agencies. See his web page at http://www.wvu.edu/%7Eagexten/landrec/land.htm
Dr. Skousen teaches two classes per year. One is an introductory course in environmental protection, ENVP 155, with an enrollment of about 100 students. The other is a course in reclamation, AGRN 455, designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, with an enrollment of 50 students.
The research program of Dr. Skousen is directed toward reclamation of disturbed lands and improvement of water quality. He has been the principal investigator on externally-funded grants totaling over $2 million. He works with other faculty, directs graduate student research, publishes results in journals and proceedings, and presents findings at professional meetings. He has served as an associate editor for the Journal of Environmental Quality.
