CORVALLIS – David Hansen, a former Extension program leader at the University of Delaware, joins the Oregon Sea Grant leadership team Oct. 4 as program leader for Oregon Sea Grant Extension at Oregon State University.

Hansen succeeds Jay Rasmussen, who retired earlier this year after serving 14 years as Sea Grant Extension program leader.

Sea Grant Director Stephen Brandt called Hansen “a first-rate choice to lead Sea Grant Extension at a time when time when coastal stakeholders need our services most. He brings both the scientific and academic background and the practical experience to help us achieve our goals of using sound science to create a more informed and engaged society around issues important to our coast, our region and our nation.”

Hansen will be based on the OSU Campus and will oversee a marine Extension program including agents, specialists and educators located on campus and on the Oregon coast from Astoria to Gold Beach, working in fields ranging from watershed restoration and fisheries policy to invasive species, climate change and tsunami preparedness. Oregon’s is one of the largest and most highly regarded Extension programs among the 30 Sea Grant programs nationwide.

Hansen will also serve on the Sea Grant leadership team, which coordinates an integrated program of ocean and coastal outreach, education, research and communications.

The new program leader was educated at Iowa State University, where he earned an MS in forest biology and a PhD in soil science and water resources. He has been an assistant professor of soil and environmental quality at UD since 2006, and since 2008 has also directed Delaware’s Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources program.

Hansen has served as Delaware’s representative on the Chesapeake Bay Program scientific and technical advisory committee and co-chair of the program’s Water Quality Goal Implementation Team.

In public presentations during his interviews at OSU this spring, Hansen emphasized the need to build strong teams and forge broad coalitions with others – inside and outside the university – to deepen Sea Grant Extension’s “diversity of expertise,” particularly in tight fiscal times. He expressed strong support for an “outcomes-based” approach to public outreach and engagement, with measurable targets and regular, quantitative assessment of results.