Professor of Natural Resources & Environment
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Director of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute
Special Counsel to President Coleman on Sustainability
Dr. Donald Scavia is Professor of Natural Resources and Environment, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute, and Special Counsel to President Coleman on Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He teaches courses in Environmental Integrated Assessment and Great Lakes Science and Management, and he and his students develop and apply numerical models and integrated assessments of the impacts of human and natural disturbance on aquatic and marine ecosystems.
He served on the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Missouri River Sediment Management Issues, the EPA Science Advisory Board Panel on Great Lakes Restoration, and continues to serve on Advisory Boards for the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the National Wildlife Federation Great Lakes Program, North American Nitrogen Center, Annis Water Research Institute, and as Science Advisor to the Healing our Waters Great Lakes Coalition. At U-M, he also serves on the Executive Committee for the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, Risk Science Center, Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation program, and the visioning task force for Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.
He has been SNRE Associate Dean for Research, Director of the Michigan Sea Grant Program, Director of the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research, Associate Editor for Estuaries and Coasts; Associate Editor for Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, and has served on the Boards of Directors for the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and the International Association for Great Lakes Research.
Prior to joining the faculty at U-M in 2004, Dr. Scavia held positions as the Chief Scientist of NOAA’s National Ocean Service, Director of NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, and Director of NOAA’s Coastal Ocean Program. Between 1975 and 1990, he was a research scientist with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, focusing on modeling and empirical studies of nutrient cycling, bacteria and phytoplankton production, food-web dynamics, and biological-physical coupling at all scales.
Dr. Scavia holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in Environmental Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Michigan. He has edited two books and published more than 90 articles in the primary literature, and led development of dozens of interagency scientific assessments and program development plans.
