BROOKINGS – Four finalists for the vice president of research and economic development position will visit the South Dakota State University campus in the coming weeks.
Each candidate will spend two days on campus meeting with university leadership, deans, researchers, faculty, students and staff. There will be two open forums for each individual to engage with other key stakeholders and community and university members.
The four finalists are:
Richard Morrison
Morrison has served in his current role as professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences since 2007. He was the endowed chair in sciences basic to medicine from 2007-12. Prior to both of those appointments, Morrison was a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 2004-07 and a professor in the Department of Microbiology at Montana State University from 2002-04.
During his tenure at Arkansas, Morrison has built on the existing research strength in the department in the areas of microbial pathogenesis and host immune response. Extramural grant funding has increased from $2 million yearly to approximately $6 million, with total active grant funding currently around $30 million The department includes 17 faculty members, 15 currently receiving extramural research funds.
Morrison holds his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Montana State while earning a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.
Morrison’s open forums will be held today from 3-3:50 p.m. and 4-4:50 p.m. in Room 104 of the South Dakota Art Museum.
Daniel Scholl
Scholl has served as the interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences at South Dakota State University since May 2016. He previously held the position of associate dean for research of the college and director of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station since 2011. Scholl came to SDSU from the Université de Montréal, where he did clinical epidemiology research and programmatic leadership and teaching as a faculty of veterinary medicine.
As associate dean for research at SDSU, the college experienced approximately a 50 percent growth in grant and contract awards under his leadership to $21 million annually. Scholl helped lead the launch of “South Dakota Ag 2020,” a broad-based research strategy that renewed the research infrastructure, provided better support processes and allowed leadership to engage aggressively with sponsors and potential sponsors of research.
Scholl earned his bachelor’s degree, doctor of veterinary medicine and master of preventive veterinary medicine from the University of California, Davis. He has a Ph.D. from the Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Scholl’s open forums will be held from 3-3:50 p.m. and 4-4:50 p.m. May 15, in Room 104 of the South Dakota Art Museum.
Adele Turzillo
Turzillo has been the director for the Division of Animal Systems at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture since 2013. NIFA provides leadership and funding for programs that advance agriculture-related sciences and is a federal agency within the USDA. Turzillo was the acting assistant director for the Institute of Food Production and Sustainability at NIFA in 2012 before her current appointment.
In her role, Turzillo provides leadership and oversight from a portfolio of extramural research programs with an annual budget of more than $50 million. She supervises a team of national program leaders and support staff, directed the peer review process for competitive grant programs, manages division operating budgets and provides policy analysis, advice and counsel to senior leaders. Turzillo works with other federal agencies, federal-state partnerships and interacts with the land-grant system and industry group to align research priorities.
Turzillo earned multiple degrees, including her Ph.D., from Cornell University. She has 12 years of research and teaching experience at Colorado State University and the University of Arizona.
Turzillo’s open forums will be held May 17 from 3-3:50 p.m. and 4-4:50 p.m., in Room 104 of the South Dakota Art Museum.
Jeffrey Zaleski
Zaleski has been the associate vice provost for research-sciences at Indiana University since 2015. He has also held the title of professor of chemistry at Indiana since 2004. He professional experiences at the university date to 1996 when he was hired as an assistant professor of chemistry.
As associate vice provost, Zaleski manages seven research centers and institutes that include laboratory animal research facilities, the Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter, the Stone Age Institute and the Light Microscopy Imaging Center. He is also responsible for overseeing funding for the Indiana Clinical and Trans-lational Sciences Institute Hub at the university’s medical school located in Indianapolis.
Zaleski did postdoctoral work in physical-bioinorganic chemistry at Stanford University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from State University of New York at Geneseo and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University.
Zaleski’s open forums will be held May 18 from 3-3:50 p.m. and 4-4:50 p.m. in Room 104 of the South Dakota Art Museum.
Additional information on each candidate can be found at sdstate.edu.
