Professor Jerald Schnoor is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (elected in 1999) for his pioneering work using mathematical models in science policy decisions. He testified several times before Congress on the environmental effects of acid deposition and the importance of passing the 1990 Clean Air Act. While serving as Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science and Technology, Jerry guides the leading journal in the world in both environmental engineering and environmental science. His editorial writings on environmental policy and research have been widely accessed by the international community. Professor Schnoor has published (as author, co-author, or editor) six books and over 150 research articles in archival journals, in addition to serving as lead editor of a series of texts and monographs for John Wiley & Sons (Wiley Interscience on Environmental Science and Technology).

Schnoor chaired the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development from 2000-2004. Currently, he is one of three Co-Directors for the National Science Foundation Project Office on a Collaborative Large-scale Engineering Analysis Network for Environmental Research (CLEANER), a $250 million proposal to construct a national environmental observatory network for the sensing, modeling, and forecasting of environmental contaminants beginning in 2011.

Professor Schnoor and his students have pioneered phytoremediation, the use of plants to help clean the environment. The research involves discovering novel pathways for the uptake, storage, and metabolism of toxic organic chemicals at waste sites. Schnoor has been instrumental in the full-scale clean-up and demonstration of phytoremediation systems to remediate petrochemical contaminations, explosives contaminant remediation from groundwater using created wetlands, and the interception and treatment of groundwater plumes containing industrial chemicals. Schnoor's publications cover a wide range of environmental problems including toxic chemical fate and transport, surface and groundwater contaminant modeling, phytoremediation, and carbon sequestration for mitigation of greenhouse gases. Over the past three years, Jerry has developed a novel course at the University of Iowa on sustainable environmental systems and has worked closely with students in Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW).