Diane Rowland, professor of crop physiology and division chair at the University of Florida, has been named dean of the College of Maine Higher education of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture, and director of the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station, powerful Aug. 1, 2021. 

Rowland, a graduate of Orono Large University, began her scientific career as a investigation plant physiologist and lead scientist with the USDA Agricultural Analysis Services in Ga. In 2010, she joined the College of Florida Institute of Foodstuff and Agricultural Sciences. 

For most of her occupation, Rowland has specialised in the physiological mechanisms of crop tension, specially linked to drought and crop h2o shortage resilience. She has received additional than $7 million in funding and, most lately, is element of a $26 million National Science Foundation Engineering Study Heart led by the College of Pennsylvania. 

Rowland pioneered the advancement of primed acclimation, a h2o administration procedure that capitalizes on the just about universal priming response in crop vegetation to increase drought tolerance. In her training roles, she co-set up the University of Florida Agronomy Department’s internationally identified agroecology graduate software in 2012, an interdepartmental plan created up of master’s and Ph.D. concentrations focused on assessing the sustainability and resilience of world agroecosystems. 

She also proven and directed the Centre for Worry Resilient Agriculture, centered on transdisciplinary strategies to exploring, extending and teaching about the complexity of challenges to preserving sustainable meals production around the world. Rowland, who has chaired the Agronomy Section because 2019, is a Fellow of the Crop Science Culture of The usa.

“I want to thank Dr. Mario Teisl who served as interim dean of NSFA all through this notably tough time of the pandemic,” says John Volin, UMaine govt vice president for tutorial affairs and provost. “I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Diane Rowland as the incoming dean of NSFA and director of the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station. Dr. Rowland has deep practical experience and strengths in integrating varied study and tutorial packages, and will be a visionary chief in assisting to continue on to advance this fantastic college or university.”

Rowland notes that she is “grateful to have this option to arrive household to provide the condition of Maine and to lead these a solid and diverse faculty.” 

“NSFA signifies several of the core disciplines that are desired to tackle the grand difficulties that modern society faces — from foods safety and human health, to the sustainability of the heritage industries so important to this state,” Rowland states. “I appear ahead to advertising and marketing the outstanding function of NSFA and staying element of the significant influence UMaine would make on the point out and outside of.”