Dr. Darrel W. Schmitz is a geologist with 35 years of experience. He is currently an Emeritus Professor of Geology in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University and a Registered Professional Geologist in Mississippi. His research interests include natural resources development and protection such as water resources, and fossil fuel resources. Studies have been conducted in Mississippi, other portions of the U.S. and internationally.  He has presented on research at two international conferences as an invited key-note presenter – one in China in 2012 and one in South Africa in 2013. Schmitz has been active in state, regional and national organizations including serving as the Past President of National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG®) and the Association of Engineering Geologists (AEG), where he is a national Past-President. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA) and serves on committees of the American Geosciences Institute (AGI).

Education

• Ph.D. (Geology), Texas A&M University, 1991
• M.S. (Engineering Science-Geology), University of Mississippi, 1985
• B.S. (Geology), Mississippi State University, 1980

Experience

• Full Professor of Geology, Mississippi State University, 2000-Present.
• Head, Department of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, 2004-2012. 
• Associate Professor of Geology, Mississippi State University, 1995-2000.
• Assistant Professor of Geology, Mississippi State University, 1990-1995.
• Teaching Assistant and Assistant Lecturer, Texas A&M University, 1988-1990.
• Hydrogeologist and Project Manager, BCM Converse, Inc., Jackson, MS, 1986-1988.
• Geologist, State of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 1982-1986:  Office of Pollution Control Groundwater Planning Section Coordinator, Office of Geology Groundwater Geology Section, and R & D Center Mineral Resources Research Institute Unit.
• Geologist, Exploration Services Inc., Tyler, TX, 1982.
• Geologist, North American Exploration, Inc., Kaysville, UT, 1980-1982

Research Interests

Range from the physical (water movement and geologic controls on water movement) and chemical (natural water composition and contaminant transport) aspects of hydrogeology to related areas of development of fossil fuel resources.

Teaching Areas

• Dev. Of Fossil Fuel Resources
• Gulf Coast Stratigraphy
• Physical Hydrogeology   
• Engineering Geology
• Subsurface Methods 
• Field Methods in Geosciences (Hydrogeology)

Honors/Professional Activities

Active in state, regional and national organizations including the Mississippi Academy of Sciences, where he has served as Geology and Geography Division Chairman; and the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG), where he has held several Mississippi Section offices, including President, and Delegate to the national AIPG convention. He is also a member of the Association of Engineering Geologists (AEG), where he is a national Past-President and where he has received numerous Presidential Awards and served on several committees; the Geological Society of America (GSA) for which he was Co-Chair of the 1996 Southeastern Section Meeting and has been designated as a Fellow; and the National Ground Water Association's (NGWA) Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers for whom he judged and presented the NGWA's awards at the Forty-Fourth and Forty-Fifth International Science and Engineering Fairs.  As a member of the Mississippi Geological Society Dr. Schmitz served as an editor for Volume Forty-two of the Transactions of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies.  He was appointed to the Mississippi Board of Registered Professional Geologists where he is a Past-President.  He has served as Chair on several committees and is a national Past-President of the National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG) from which he has received its prestigious Charles R. Sherman Award.  Dr. Schmitz was a founding director and still serves a director of the ASBOG Foundation. He currently serves on an American Geosciences Institute (AGI) committee on Critical Issues.

Graduate Students

• Brittany Gardner (Co-Chair)
• R. Tyler Berry
• Brandon Crabtree
• Jeremy Foote
• Lauren Parker
• Claire Rose (Co-Chair)
• Taryn Smith

• Dakhlalla, Abdullah O.; Parajuli, Prem B.; Ouyang, Ying; and Schmitz, Darrel W. 2015, Evaluating the impacts of crop rotations on groundwater storage and recharge in an agricultural watershed. Agricultural Water Management, 163: 332-343.  
• Schmitz, D., The Need for Accreditation of Geology Programs in the United States, 2010, in Geologically Active, Williams, A. et. al., Ed., CRC Press, pp. 4467-4470.
• Mukherjee, M., Ruckstuhl, K., and Schmitz, D., Observations from Ship Island, Mississippi on Day 80 of the BP Oil Spill, 2010, AEG News, Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 19-23.
• Rogers, J.D., Boutwell, G.P., Schmitz, D.W., Karadeniz, D., Watkins, C.M., Athanasopuolos-Zekkos, A.G., and Cobos-Roa, D. 2008, Geologic Conditions Underlying the 2005 17th Street Canal Levee Failure in New Orleans. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. 134: 583-601.
• Schmitz, D.W., and May, J.H., 1994, A Predictive Model to Optimize the Collection of Data Needed to Characterize Fluvial Sand Bodies:  Technical Report GL-94-10, U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS 121p plus Appendicies.
• May, J.H. and Schmitz, D.W., 1996, Development of a Predictive Model for Defining Subsurface Sand Bodies, Engineering Geology, Vol.42, pp. 175-186.
• Schmitz, D.W. and May, J.H., 1996, Test Applications of a Predictive Model for Delineation of Fluvial Sand Bodies Using Geologically Based Calculations, Engineering Geology, Vol. 42. pp. 187-203.
• Schmitz, D.W. and Russell, E.E., 1998, An Earthquake and Environmental Assessment of Faulting in the Demopolis Chalk in Lowndes County Mississippi, Mississippi Geological Society Bulletin, Vol. 46, No. 8 pp. 5-7.
• Charlton, J.E. and Schmitz, D.W., 1999, Shallow Groundwater Resources of the Proposed Red Hills Facility and Mine Area, Proceedings of the twenty-ninth Mississippi Water Resources Conference, pp. 130-138.
• Crowe, C.R. and Schmitz, D.W., 2001, A Systematic Approach to Determine the Existence or Non-Existence of Atrazine and its Major Degradation Products in Mississippi Groundwater, Proceedings of the thirty-first Mississippi Water Resources Conference, pp. 17-33.              
• Schmitz, D.W. and Wax, C.L., 2002, A Contrast in Water resource Development and Settlement Patterns: Black Prairie and North Central Hills Regions of Mississippi, Proceedings of the thirty-second Mississippi Water Resources Conference, pp. 176-187.
• Schmitz, D.W., Wax, C.L., and Peacock, E.., 2003,  Water-resource Controls on Human Habitation in the Black Prairie of North-Central Mississippi, in Blackland Prairies of the Gulf Coastal Plain: Nature, Culture, and Sustainability, Peacock, E. and Schauwecker, T., Ed., The University of Alabama Press.
• Green, B.H., and Schmitz, D.W., 2004, Technical Note:  Soil-Based Controlled Low-Strength Materials, Environmental and Engineering Geoscience, Vol. X, No. 2, pp. 169-174.
• Beasley, R.W., Hamil, B., May, J., and Schmitz, D., 2007, An Experimental Exercise Used to Determine if Mississippi’s Science Framework is Adequately Preparing High School Graduates to Make Informed Decisions about Groundwater, Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences, v. 52, No. 3, pp. 172-177.
• Rogers, J.D., Boutwell, G.P., Schmitz, D.W., Karadeniz, D., Watkins, C.M., Athanasopuolos-Zekkos, A.G., and Cobos-Roa, D. 2008, Geologic Conditions Underlying the 2005 17th Street Canal Levee Failure in New Orleans. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. 134: 583-601.