18 March 2022
Dear Members of the OSU Community:
It is my pleasure to announce the appointment of Dr. Staci Simonich as Oregon State University’s new Dean of Agricultural Sciences and Director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, effective March 28. This follows an accelerated search process that I implemented in response to extensive feedback received from internal and external stakeholders to the college. I communicated that process and its rationale to the college and university leadership in late February.
Staci currently serves as acting dean, following Dr. Alan Sams’ recent acceptance of a position at Texas A&M University. She is a professor in environmental and molecular toxicology and chemistry and has served in several leadership roles at OSU, including executive associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences, associate vice president for research operations and integrity at OSU, associate dean for academic and student affairs in the College of Science, and associate department head in environmental and molecular toxicology.
Dr. Simonich received her Ph.D. in chemistry from Indiana University in 1995 and an MBA from OSU in 2020. She completed APLU's LEAD 21 training in 2017 and the Higher Education Resource Services Institute Leadership training, as a Clare Booth Luce STEM Scholarship Recipient in 2018. Prior to joining Oregon State University and the College of Agricultural Sciences in 2001, she worked in the consumer product industry with Procter & Gamble for six years. She is a recently named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Staci was appointed as executive associate Dean in April 2020 following a national search and has built an impressive list of accomplishments in that role. Working closely with Dean Sams, she has been instrumental in implementing many significant changes in structure, practice, and policy in the college, while also overseeing most of its day-to-day internal operations. She has actively cultivated faculty, staff, and external relationships across the state; visited and engaged with all OSU’s 13 experiment stations; and championed and advanced diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
Please join me in congratulating Staci upon her appointment.
Sincerely,
Edward Feser
Provost and Executive Vice President