Design and Construction of Phosphorus Removal Structures for Improving Water Quality

Dr. Chad Penn is a soil, agricultural, and environmental chemist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS).  Before joining the ARS, he served as a professor of soil and environmental chemistry at Oklahoma State University for eleven years.  He received his B.S. in soil science at Penn State University (1998) and M.S. in environmental soil science (2001).  He earned his Ph.D. in environmental soil chemistry at Virginia Tech (2004).  Dr. Penn has constructed over twenty phosphorus removal structures throughout the U.S., and helped to design many more in the U.S. and internationally.  With his thirteen years of experience in conducting research on removing dissolved phosphorus from runoff, Dr. Penn created the software, “Phosphorus Removal Online Guidance” (Phrog), in an effort to disseminate the technology and enable the lay-person to more easily design and construct phosphorus removal structures.    He has been a member of the National Academy of Inventors since 2015 and the American Society of Agronomy since 1997.   Dr. Penn continues to help people around the world design phosphorus removal structures.

Mr. James Bowen is pursuing a Ph.D. in the plant and soil sciences department with a concentration in soil fertility at the University of Kentucky. His research focuses on the spatial variability of soil phosphorus critical thresholds in agricultural systems. He has a BS in environmental science and an MS in soil science from Oklahoma State University. Mr. Bowen earned his M.S. degree under Dr. Penn while conducting research focused on design and quantification of phosphorus removal structures.  He is a co-creator of the Phrog software.