Jeff Schloss to Fill in as Acting Extension Program Leader for Lake Champlain Sea Grant

Lake Champlain Sea Grant welcomes Jeffrey Schloss as Acting Extension Program Leader for one year. Jeff will stand in for Associate Director and Extension Leader Kris Stepenuck, who will be on a University of Vermont faculty sabbatical leave for the 2022–2023 academic year. 

Jeff comes to Vermont and the Lake Champlain basin from New Hampshire, where he is a Water Quality/Resources Specialist and Extension Professor Emeritus in Aquatic Ecology at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and a water resources consultant. He previously served as a UNH Cooperative Extension Program team leader, associate director of the UNH Center for Freshwater Biology, and co-director of the New Hampshire Lakes Lay Monitoring Program.

At Lake Champlain Sea Grant, Jeff will support staff and students, maintain extension operations, and contribute to existing and new efforts in Kris’s absence.

“I am excited to work with the LCSG staff whose programs align so closely to my commitment to provide outreach, education, and research that addresses community water resources concerns,” said Jeff, who, in his early years at UNH, worked with a then fledgling Lake Champlain Sea Grant program on a New England regional water quality effort—the basis for the current LEAP program. “It is amazing to now see how Lake Champlain Sea Grant has grown to such a collection of significant efforts and synergistic partnerships that address the needs of the communities and resources in the Lake Champlain basin and beyond.”

Jeff earned an M.S. in Marine and Aquatic Biology from The American University and a B.S. in Marine Zoology and B.A. in Economics from Duke University. In his most recent research, he has focused on cyanobacteria toxin ecology, watershed nutrient loading and lake response modeling, monitoring and management of aquatic invasive species, water quality, plankton ecology, and community-based and participatory science.

At UNH, Jeff addressed local, state, and regional water and natural resources concerns by working with educators, students, private landowners, watershed associations, conservation groups, local decision-makers, and agency staff. With state and regional partners, he developed watershed assessment tools for communities and helped to train students, educators, local decision-makers, and agency staff to use GIS in watershed resource inventories and water quality/aquatic habitat issues.

“I am grateful to Jeff for sharing his knowledge, expertise, and time with our program,” said Kris, “and I look forward to learning from him and seeing our Sea Grant program thrive with the ideas and energy he will bring.”