Three candidates have been selected as finalists in the search for a new director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

The finalists are Abdullah Jaradat, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s North Central Soil Conservation Research Lab; Thanos Papanicolaou, of the department of cvil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa; and Mark Rasmussen, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Jaradat will be giving a seminar at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 28 in Room 1951 of the Food Sciences building. Papanicolaou will have a seminar at 2 p.m. Dec. 1 in 1951 of the Food Sciences Building, and Rasmussen will be on campus at 2 p.m. Dec. 5 in room 8 of Curtiss Hall.

The Leopold Center has been searching for a director since 2009 after Jerry DeWitt announced his retirement.

This is the second search for a director of the Leopold Center. Two finalists were named in the first search, but neither took the job.

Frank Louws, who was working for North Carolina State University at the time, was asked to take the job but told the Daily in 2010 that he had a better offer.

“Discussions about the hiring process did not affect my decision,” Louws said. “In the final analysis, I had to make a career choice between two outstanding opportunities and in the final days of the decision, it became increasingly clear that our family would be best served by staying in North Carolina.”

The second candidate, Ricardo Salvador, who was working for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, was never offered the job.

“My colleagues at the foundation were very supportive of my initial interest in the Leopold Center, since they recognized the unique personal opportunity this represented,” Salvador told the Daily in 2010. “However, we all understood that this was now behind us. For this reason, my primary commitment and responsibility now is to the Kellogg Foundation. It would take something really extraordinary for all the stars to realign once again around the situation at the Leopold Center, but it is a sufficiently important opportunity that I must at least consider it.”

Sharron Quisenberry, ISU vice president for research and economic development will be charing the committee.

Search committee members are Bill Ehm, Iowa Department of Natural Resources; Dan Frieberg, Premier Crop Systems LLC, West Des Moines; Matt Helmers, ISU department of agricultural and biosystems engineering; Cathy Kling, ISU department of economics; Matt Liebman, ISU department of agronomy; Ann McCarthy, ISU State Relations Office; James Russell, ISU department of animal science; Jennifer Steffen, Birmingham, Iowa, farmer and State Soil Conservation Committee; and Keith Summerville, Drake University. Ehm, Frieberg, Steffen and Summerville represent the Leopold Center’s advisory board.