Jessica Moore

Jessica Moore is the West Virginia State Geologist and Director of the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, a non-regulatory state agency within the WV Department of Commerce headquartered at the Mont Chateau lodge in Morgantown. She is a ninth-generation West Virginian and the first woman to lead the agency since its creation in 1897.  Ms. Moore was appointed by Governor Jim Justice in 2021, and currently serves as Past President of the Association of American State Geologists, Secretary of the U.S. Potential Gas Committee, and is a member of the National Academy of Science’s Board on Earth Science and Research.

A subsurface geologist by training, Jessica graduated from West Virginia University in 2001 and received an M.S. in Geology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 2003. She spent the first part of her career working for the State of North Carolina studying the migration of barrier islands on the Outer Banks before returning home in 2007 to pursue a PhD at WVU. Since then, Jessica has contributed to multiple regional geologic studies on topics pertaining to energy, including the Utica Shale Playbook, Appalachian Storage Hub study, and the Midwest Regional Carbon Initiative. Her work today sits at the intersection of energy and economic development with a special focus on emerging sectors of West Virginia’s energy portfolio such as CCUS, critical minerals, geothermal energy, and native hydrogen.