While at a nature camp at age ten, Dann Sklarew first realized how much he valued nature. He had no idea that he would spend the next several decades evolving into one of Mason’s environmental heroes. Building on a bachelor’s degree in behavioral ecology from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in cognitive science from Boston University, Sklarew followed in his mother’s footsteps and came to Mason to pursue a graduate degree. He served as an ecology teaching assistant, adjunct instructor, and researcher until completing his doctoral degree in environmental biology and public policy in 2000. During the next eight years Sklarew focused on international water management issues, leading a United Nations project that assisted communities around the globe. He returned to Mason in 2008 to engage in environmental collaboration and education closer to home.

Today Sklarew is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP) and associate director of the Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center (PEREC). For his tremendous enthusiasm and energy for teaching the next generation, he received Mason’s 2010 Teaching Excellence Award.

Chris Jones, ESP professor and director of PEREC and the Mason Center forConservation Studies, was Sklarew’s doctoral advisor and has known him for more than seventeen years. “Dann has become an important component in ESP’s ecology and aquatic biology offerings,” says Jones. “He is untiringly dedicated to quality teaching.”

Sklarew’s accomplishments as an environmental leader were recently applauded university-wide when he was honored with the Mason Sustainability Hero Award. This annual award recognizes those who have furthered university sustain- ability efforts through their creativity, dedication, and heart.

Sklarew has a lot of heart when it comes to teaching and the environment. He is a faculty advisor to ten graduate students and serves on several environmental advisory boards. He is also active in NoVA Outside, a new alliance of Northern Virginia educators teaching people of all ages about environmental issues. Add to that his recent appointment as the university’s Fellow of Sustainability Studies—a two-year assignment to promote education and research opportunities across Mason campuses—and raising twin toddlers in his personal time, and you have a busy man.

“I hope to help Mason grow its sustainability culture and identity—in our scholarship, education, and community service—so that one day my kids might be proud to be third- generation Patriots,” says Sklarew.