AMES, Iowa — The dean of Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has been named to the board of directors of the U.S.-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund.
Wendy Wintersteen was appointed to the position by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Wintersteen is one of three Americans serving the organization’s board, along with Chavonda Jacobs-Young, administrator of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, and Neal Van Alfen, professor of plant pathology and former dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis. The board also has three members from Israel.
The U.S.-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, or BARD, is a competitive funding program for mutually beneficial, mission-oriented, strategic and applied research of agricultural problems, jointly conducted by U.S. and Israeli scientists. For 30 years, the program has provided $270 million in funding for nearly 1,200 research projects. Over the years, BARD has funded 25 research projects at Iowa State University.
Wintersteen is the Endowed Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and holds the first endowed deanship established at Iowa State. She also is director of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station. Wintersteen, who became dean in 2006, is the 10th dean of agriculture in Iowa State’s 156-year history.
Wintersteen also serves on the board of trustees of the Farm Foundation and the board of trustees of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology.