Joy Ward (Committee Co‐Chair)

Associate Dean for Research and Dean’s Professor, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States

Biography

Joy has a depth of experience in both research and leadership that spans local, national, and international levels. Her research has led to major advances in understanding plant responses to a rapidly changing global environment. By incorporating the fossil record, she has provided novel insights into how plants have responded to long-term environmental changes since the last glacial period, as well as understanding how plants will respond to environmental change of the future. She has received long-term funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through her work in plant biology and was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama and the NSF CAREER Award. At the University of Kansas, she has received the University Scholarly Achievement Award in STEM research, the Thelma and Edward Wohlgemuth Endowed Chair, the K. Barbara Schowen Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, and was named a University of Kansas Woman of Distinction. She is also a Kavli Fellow and served as U.S. chair for the National Academy’s Frontier of Sciences through the Japanese-American and Arab-American programs, and has been a scientific delegate to Uzbekistan through the American Association for the Advancement of Science and through the State Department. She has been a KU senior administrative fellow and will soon graduate from the Food Systems Leadership Institute, a two-year executive leadership training program through the APLU (Association of Public & Land-grant Universities). She has mentored many successful students at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels, and has been a mentor for several NIH programs to enhance diversity in STEM fields.