Iowa State Professor to Lead Regional Aquaculture Center

AMES, Iowa — Joe Morris, professor of natural resource ecology and management at Iowa State University, has been named director of the North Central Regional Aquaculture Center (NCRAC). Morris has been associate director of the Center since 2000. His new post is effective Jan. 1. As associate director, Morris had been managing the extension and outreach for the center. In his new position, he will add management of its research and financial aspects. Morris takes over for Ted Batterson, a professor at Michigan State University's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, who is retiring. Batterson became the Center's director in 1993. The Centeris one of the five regional Aquaculture Centers established by Congress and administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), formerly of the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service. Its mission is to enhance aquaculture through education, research and technology transfer to support a sustainable profitable industry. The NCRAC serves the 12 states in the North Central Region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Morris joined Iowa State in 1988. He earned a bachelor's degree in fisheries and wildlife biology from Iowa State in 1979, a master's degree in wildlife and fisheries sciences from Texas A and M University in 1982 and a doctorate degree in fisheries from Mississippi State University in 1988.