Initially trained as a civil engineer, he is better known as a naturalist, conservationist, and botany professor at the University of Iowa.

Shimek contributions include establishing the state park system in Iowa, the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, the American School of Wild Life Protection, and the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

He published over 190 scholarly works, and is credited with the discovery of the origins of the Loess Hills.

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