BROOKINGS – Four finalists for the position of dean of the College of Natural Sciences will visit the South Dakota State University campus in the coming weeks.

Each candidate will interview and meet with university leadership, deans, researchers, faculty, students and staff. There will be open forums for each candidate to engage with other key stakeholders, including community and university members.

The finalists are:

Gary Emmert 

Emmert has been the chair of the Department of Chemistry at The University of Memphis since 2015 and a professor in the department since 2010. Emmert is also the founder and chief scientific officer of Foundation Instruments Inc., which was formed in 2009 from his work at Memphis. The company developed systems to ensure quality in drinking water treatment plants and distribution systems. He has been awarded five patents in the United States and Europe.

Emmert began his tenure at Memphis in 2002 as an assistant professor in the department. He also spent time in teaching capacities at Arkansas State University and St. Lawrence University. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Miami University and his bachelor’s and master’s in the same discipline from Tennessee Technological University.

Emmert will interview Oct. 16-17. His public open forum will be 1 p.m. Oct. 16 in Pugsley Center, room 214.

Charlene Wolf-Hall

Wolf-Hall is currently the vice provost for academic affairs at North Dakota State University, a position she has held since 2015. Her tenure at NDSU initially dates to 1996 when she was a laboratory technician in the food and nutrition department. She then moved to an assistant professor and associate professor before becoming the interim director for the Great Plains Institute of Food Safety in 2006. In 2009, Wolf-Hall was the assistant dean for the College of Graduate and Interdisciplinary Studies and then department head for veterinary and microbiological sciences in 2011 after becoming a full professor in 2010.

In her current role, Wolf-Hall serves as the summer school director where she grew student credit hours by 35 percent. She also is the university’s liaison officer for the Higher Learning Commission Accreditation, oversees assessment and program review and chairs the learning spaces executive and advisory committees.

Wolf-Hall earned her Ph.D. in food science and technology with an emphasis in food microbiology and food toxicology from the University of Nebraska. She has a master’s and bachelor’s degree in microbiology from South Dakota State University.

Wolf-Hall will interview Oct. 17-18. Her public open forum will be 1:30 p.m. Oct. 18 in Pugsley Center, room 214.

Wesley Stites

Stites has served as the chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas since 2014. He has been a faculty member in the department since 1991. His teaching responsibilities have included biochemistry, molecular biology, forensic chemistry and organic chemistry.

As chair, he oversees more than 30 faculty – 26 of those being tenured or tenure-track – and a department that has more than 400 majors enrolled. Stites’ department is also responsible for more than 6 percent of all external research funding obtained by the university.

Stites earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a combined four-year bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins.

Stites will interview Oct. 22-23. His public open forum will be at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 22 in Pugsley Center, room 214.

John Lopes

Lopes has served as the associate dean for operations and graduate and postdoctoral program at the University of Massachusetts since 2015 and his career at UMass started in 2007 when he was a professor. He also served as the head of microbiology from 2007-15.

Lopes’ current role in the College of Natural Sciences, in addition to overseeing the graduate programs, includes overseeing the operations of 24 buildings and various extension facilities. The college is the largest at UMass with approximately 6,400 undergraduates, 1,000 graduate students, 13 departments and two schools with 325 tenure-track faculty. Lopes was involved in the recent restructuring of the college as well as its strategic plan development and financial management of the college.

Prior to UMass, Lopes spent nearly 10 years at Wayne State University in Michigan where he was an associate professor, professor and later an associate chair. He holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of South Carolina and did a postdoctoral research fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University. Lopes earned a bachelor’s degree of science in zoology from the University of Rhode Island.

Lopes will interview Oct. 29-30. His public open forum will be 1:30 p.m. Oct. 29 in Pugsley Center, room 214.