Nessler named sole finalist for Texas AgriLife Research director
COLLEGE STATION – Dr. Craig L. Nessler, a plant scientist who has led agricultural research at Virginia Tech since 2004, has been named the sole finalist for director of Texas AgriLife Research, the state’s leading research agency in agriculture, natural resources and the life sciences.
The finalist designation was approved by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Friday. By state law governing certain key appointments, the board must give a 21-day notice before officially filling the position.
“Dr. Nessler brings to this position a wealth of experience in administration, teaching and research,” said Dr. Mark Hussey, vice chancellor and dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “He has compiled an outstanding record in building the agricultural research program at Virginia Tech. We look forward to what he can accomplish here.”
Nessler’s appointment, if given final approval by the regents in October, would bring him back to Texas A&M, where he began his 30-year career as an assistant professor of biology. During his 21 years on campus, he rose in rank to professor and associate head in the department of biology. He left in 2000 to head the department of plant pathology, physiology and weed science at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
Five years ago, Nessler was promoted to director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and associate dean for research in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
“I am really looking forward to the opportunity to come back to Texas, where agriculture has such great importance to the economy of the state,” Nessler said.
Agricultural and natural resources issues affecting Texas, water being but one example, are going to be common everywhere else, he noted, “so hopefully our research can be at the forefront of finding some of the answers we will all need.”
While at Virginia Tech, Nessler said, he strongly encouraged his faculty to continually seek competitive funding, “not for the sake of the dollars acquired, but for the independence that grants offer to pursue innovative scholarship and research.”
The goal, he said, was to have the resources necessary to ensure that scientists could continue to pursue their work without being unduly concerned about budget shortfalls or downturns in the economy.
During his five-year tenure leading the Virginia experiment station, Nessler said, faculty saw an average 10.3 percent increase in new funding each year.
Until this year, Nessler himself headed a research program that generated $8.4 million in competitive grants and was the first to metabolically engineer an increase in water-soluble Vitamin C in plants. Although he has since stepped away from the lab because of administrative duties, Nessler said, his former colleagues are investigating a promising Vitamin C pathway to genetically improve the productivity, shelf life and nutritional value of a variety of crops.
Nessler, 59, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the College of William & Mary. He earned his doctoral degree in plant science with a pharmacology minor from Indiana University in 1976.
As director, Nessler would administer a state agency with an annual budget of more than $170 million. AgriLife Research employs 1,700 people, both in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M and in 13 research centers across the state. Some 375 doctoral-level scientists are engaged in 500 research projects, including collaborations in more than 30 countries.
The agency has long supported the state’s farming and ranching enterprises, but its researchers are also developing fruits and vegetables with enhanced nutrition and disease-fighting compounds, leading innovative research for renewable energy sources, and implementing new methods to improve air and water quality.
A member of The Texas A&M University System, AgriLife Research collaborates with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and others to help fulfill the A&M System's land-grant mission of teaching, research, extension and service.
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