Donna Jacob PHD

Donna Jacob, PhD, PWS, is an Environmental Scientist at Houston Engineering, Inc.
(HEI) with 25 years of experience in the areas of wetland ecology research and applied science. After stints in paleobotany at the Smithsonian Institution and the Field Museum of Natural History, she changed research interests to contemporary ecosystems and received her PhD from University College Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. She then spent ten years as an Assistant/Associate Research Professor at North Dakota State University, working as Co-Director of the North Dakota Metal Analysis Core (NIH) and founding the Wet Ecosystem Research Group. She supervised six students pursuing PhDs, four students pursuing master’s degrees, and over 100 undergraduates in the biogeochemistry laboratory. She also published 28 peer-reviewed scientific articles. In 2014, she moved to the private sector and became a wetland practitioner at Houston Engineering, Inc. She now spends her time working to protect and enhance natural areas by performing aquatic resources delineations and various ecological assessments, developing wetland banking and restoration sites, and writing NEPA documents. She is a long-time member of the Society of Wetland Scientists and received certification as a Professional Wetland Scientist (PWS) in 2015. She lives in rural Minnesota with her scientist husband and future-scientist teenage son.