Michelle M. Scherer

Biography

Dr. Michelle Scherer is the Dean of Engineering at Michigan Technological University. She joined the pack in 2024, bringing with her 26 years of experience as an educator, researcher, and administrator at The University of Iowa (UI). At UI, she was a Distinguished Chair and Professor in The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). She served as Chair of the CEE Department for eight years, founded and co-chaired the College of Engineering (CoE) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Council and served as Director of the CoE Hanson Center for Communication. As Chair of the CEE Department at UI, she led the effort to create several new degree programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including a BS degree program in Environmental Engineering and graduate programs focused on Sustainable Development. She worked throughout her career to create a strong culture of excellence in science communication, first through developing courses on science communication, then college-wide as Director of the Hanson Center for Communication.

In addition to Dr. Scherer’s experience as an administrator, she is an environmental engineer working to provide clean water for all. She has led and sustained a world-class externally funded research program (~$20M, 83 publications with an h-index of 55 and > 11,000 citations) trying to discover new geochemical processes in soils and sediments and promote new ways to keep water safe while educating and training students to engineer a sustainable future with clean water for all. She led large transdisciplinary research and educational teams funded by NSF, DOE, EPA, SERDP, USDA, and HUD and has worked closely with several National Laboratories (i.e., ANL and PNNL). As part of her research program, she has had the privilege and joy to work with more than 30 wonderful graduate students who have gone on to successful careers in academics, public service, and industry.

Expertise and Research Interests

In her research laboratory, as well in fields and homes, Professor Scherer's research group has worked to discover new ways to keep water safe by shedding light on fundamental processes in soils and, more recently, leading multiple initiatives to assess children’s exposure to lead (Pb) in drinking water. Her group’s work is most widely known for their pioneering work on mineral geochemistry in soils and sediments and the implications of these reactions for pollutant fate, metals release, nutrient cycling, carbon partitioning. She has published over 80 journal articles and her work has been cited more than 10,000 times. Her group’s work has been supported by NSF, EPA, DOE, HUD, and DOD/SERDP.