Meet Art Schmidt

SchmidtArthur Schmidt is a Research Assistant Professor for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before accepting his faculty position in 2003, Schmidt spent 12 years with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Resources Division. He also served as Director of Technical Operations for HydroScience, Ltd., for five years.

As a member of the Water and Stormwater SWATeam, Schmidt hopes he can help identify infrastructure and policy approaches that the campus can implement to improve the sustainability of water use and management. He said he perceives many inefficiencies in how water is used and managed on campus, and is eager and excited for the opportunity to make water use and management more sustainable.

Schmidt believes it is the responsibility of the University to explore different solutions to problems while training students to do the same.

“At the University part of our mission is to explore different solutions to societal problems (and) another part is to train future leaders to address these problems,” he said. “Implementing innovative approaches to make … campus more sustainable addresses both of these goals by exploring approaches that could prove beneficial, by both training students in the benefits and shortcomings of different approaches, and by setting an example for our students.

“My desire is that we all realize that usually there is no ‘right’ approach, but that whatever action we take will have consequences, both beneficial and adverse, and that we need to consider all consequences.”

He strives to set an example to students through his work — teaching them about the “innovative approaches to make different aspects of the campus more sustainable.”

Overall, Schmidt is hopeful when it comes to team’s agenda.

“Our biggest strength is the tremendous pool of talent and initiative available to address these goals,” he said.

 

Return to the Land & Water SWATeam page

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