Contact: Joe Farris
Colin Guy Scanes
A scientist with a national and international reputation in biotechnology is being named vice president for research and graduate studies at Mississippi State University.
Colin Guy Scanes, whose research has been published in more than 500 scholarly papers and other publications, is expected to join MSU by June 1, subject to approval of the state College Board.
Scanes has been a professor of animal science since 1995 at Iowa State University, where he also has served as interim director of the Center for Designing Food for Human Nutrition, interim director of the Plant Sciences Institute, and executive associate director of the Iowa Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station.
He previously was distinguished professor and chair of the animal sciences department and director of the Center for Animal Damage Control at Rutgers University.
"Dr. Scanes has solid research and administrative experience in two comprehensive land-grant universities as a department chair, research center director, and associate dean and associate experiment station director," said MSU President Charles Lee. "He has won grants totaling millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, other federal agencies and private industry. He understands the intricacies of large-scale research and its capacity to expand educational and economic opportunity in Mississippi."
Scanes, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, holds advanced degrees from the University of Wales and Hull University in the United Kingdom, where he began his academic career.
He has been honored for his work with Iowa corn and soybean growers, is a fellow of the Poultry Science Association and serves on the editorial boards of scholarly journals in animal biotechnology and poultry biology.
Scanes also served on the Biotechnology Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and on the Governor's Life Sciences Advisory Committee in Iowa, along with industry consulting and other government service.
At MSU, the vice president for research works closely with faculty members in the university's eight colleges and schools, and then numerous research centers and institutes. Additionally, the Office of Research oversees intellectual property and technology licensing functions.
In addition to research-related duties, Scanes will assume responsibility for graduate studies at MSU.
Mississippi State ranks 57th among the nation's public universities in total research and development expenditures, which exceed $150 million a year. The land-grant university also is fifth among all U.S. institutions in agricultural sciences research and 32nd in engineering research, according to the National Science Foundation.