In my last note, I shared the appointment of Dr. Doug Jackson-Smith to the Kellogg Endowed Chair in Agricultural Ecosystems Management at Ohio State – a wonderful honor and exciting leadership role for Doug to advance Ohio State’s agroecosystem science research, outreach, and teaching programs.

With Doug’s transition to this new role, effective March 15, Dr. Steve Lyon will begin serving as the Associate Director for the School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) on the Wooster campus.

In this role, Dr. Lyon will lead SENR’s Wooster operations (overseeing Wooster-based staff, coordinating with campus administrators and other Wooster-based associate chairs) as well as provide leadership on research policies and practices in SENR, and chair SENR’s Research Committee and facilitate research reporting.

Dr. Lyon brings with him scholarly and administrative acumen and we are delighted to welcome him to our leadership team.

Speaking of leaders, Dr. Robert Gates received the 2023 Ohio Wildlife Management Association’s Annual Achievement Award at the 63rd Ohio Wildlife Management Conference held at the Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center in Columbus, Ohio on January 19. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to wildlife research and management in Ohio. Many of our alumni have a connection with Dr. Gates either through classes or part of the many projects associated with the Terrestrial Wildlife Ecology Lab here in the School. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Gates!

As spring nears, I hope you will consider attending (in-person or virtually) our upcoming Environmental Professionals Network program focused on Changing Rivers (March 7), which features four alumni from SENR, who will share their expertise (details here), or one of the talks planned as part of our spring seminar series (details here). And, if you are a woodland owner, join our Ohio State University Extension team in Loveland, OH (March 18) for the Ohio River Valley Woodland & Wildlife Workshop (details here).

Sincerely,

Eric Toman
Professor and Interim Director