Good morning, CALS,
Last week there was a Provost’s celebration for recipients of Nationally Competitive Awards. It was an excellent event to honor those being recognized for outstanding accomplishments. And just after that, we received word that one of the people who will be honored at next year’s event, Lynn Clark of EEOB, was announced as the 2025 recipient of the José Cuatrecasas Medal for Excellence in Tropical Botany from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History! The medal is awarded to a botanist and scholar of international stature who has contributed significantly to advancing the field of tropical botany. The award committee recognized Lynn’s many accomplishments as a scientist, mentor and science administrator (including as interim chair of EEOB), and took particular note of her contributions to and expertise in bamboo systematics and evolution, Neotropical fieldwork, mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students, and oversight of one of the largest university herbaria (the Ada Hayden Herbarium) in the country. Please help me in congratulating Dr. Clark!
Those affiliated with CALS and honored at this year's Nationally Competitive Awards event were:
- Mridul Datta, food science and human nutrition
- Erin Bergquist, food science and human nutrition
- Elisabeth Lonergan, animal science
- Lance Baumgard, animal science
- Sarah Francis, food science and human nutrition
- Matt Helmers, agricultural and biosystems engineering, INRC
- Tom Brumm, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Michelle Soupir, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Jason Ross, animal science
- Stephanie Hansen, animal science
- Saxon Ryan, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Joshua Rosenbloom, economics
- Elizabeth Hoffman, economics
- Buddhi Lamsal, food science and human nutrition
- Peter Orazem, economics
- Ramesh Kanwar, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Jim Dickson, animal science
- Emily Berg, statistics
- Bailey Adams, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Matt Darr, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Jan Thompson, natural resource ecology and management
- Bob Horton, agronomy
- Lisa Schulte Moore, natural resource ecology and management
- Walter Suza, agronomy
- Rick Cruse, agronomy
Congrats to them all!
We continue to watch, monitor and respond as best we can to the happenings in the federal government that intersect with higher education and especially funding to the university and the college (as per President Wintersteen and Provost Keith’s "Federal Research Funding Update" email sent to Iowa State faculty and staff today). It is very much a real-time, without advanced warning kind of exercise. There has not been time to consider or plan. Our university, and especially the VPR’s Office, and here in the college the work and office of Associate Dean for Research and Discovery Danny Singh have been working diligently to provide whatever definitive information there is, whenever it is available. Everyone stands ready to lean in and try to help where we can. This will all take some getting used to, and we must all acknowledge the frustration and change-up planning this creates. I wish there was more information to provide, but surely if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to the VPR’s Office, or to me or to Danny, for any insights we might have, or to try and find out more information for you.
In the meantime, and frankly – always, let’s keep our focus on the many excellent and impactful missions of the university, our science, and the service we provide to our students, our stakeholders across Iowa and beyond, and each other.
Please let me know what you’re thinking. My best - Dan
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