Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

New board member understands water quality

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2012

Iowa State University’s newest representative on the Leopold Center Advisory Board is a long-time faculty member whose research over the past three decades has focused on farming practices that can improve water quality.

Steve Mickelson chairs the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and holds the title of Charles R. and Jane F. Olsen Professor of Engineering. He has studied buffer strips and their effectiveness in improving the water quality in surface runoff from row-crop fields, cattle grazed paddocks and composting pads. He also conducts research related to the scholarship of teaching and learning, and effective classroom techniques for engaging students in learning.

He was appointed in September to serve a four-year term, replacing Senior Associate Dean Joe Colletti from the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Mickelson is no stranger to the Leopold Center. He was a member of the Animal Management Issue Team, supported by the Center from 1990 to 2002. He also worked on two research projects funded by the center, an evaluation of buffer strips in 1991, and work that was part of a larger study in 2002 evaluating phosphorus in agricultural runoff.

“I would like to help the Center provide support to others who are conducting research that will help us to inform producers on the best ways to protect our environment while being successful business owners,” he said. “I like being able to network with others who have the same goals in mind for the Center.”

Mickelson joined Iowa State in 1982 as a faculty member in Freshman Engineering, and joined the ABE department in 1996. He was associate chair of the department from 2005-2011, and became chair in August 2011. He also was director for the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and the Co-Director of Learning Communities at ISU from 2008-2011.

He grew upon a farm north of Storm Lake in Buena Vista County. His parents still live on the farm, but the cropland is leased to neighbors.

Mickelson teaches classes in engineering design, engineering computer graphics, soil and water conservation and engineering workplace competency development. He also is the author for the sixth edition of the Engineering Fundamentals and Problem Solving textbook published by McGraw-Hill.  His agricultural engineering degrees (1982, 1984 and 1991) are from ISU.

He and his wife, Colette, have five children and live in rural Story County.

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2012