Dorrance named top leadership at OSU Wooster

COLUMBUS — Plant pathologist Anne E. Dorrance has been named to the top leadership position at The Ohio State University Wooster campus.

She will begin a four-year term Jan. 1 as associate dean and director for the Wooster campus and associate director for the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station in Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES).

In her new role, she will also serve on the Vice President and Dean’s Administrative Cabinet, providing leadership and oversight for the Wooster campus. The campus is home to both the two-year Ohio State ATI and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC).

Focus on soybeans

Dorrance has been a faculty member in CFAES’ Department of Plant Pathology and based in Wooster since fall 1997. She currently serves as a professor in the department and was the director of the CFAES Center for Soybean Research. She has developed a nationally recognized research and outreach program on the management of soybean diseases that impact Ohio producers.

Her main responsibilities are in soybean and field crop research, with emphasis on soybeans, wheat, and corn. She also co-teaches the Diseases of Field Crops course, educating students on key diseases impacting crop plants, with an emphasis on identification and management strategies.

Dorrance’s educational activities also involve statewide Ohio State University Extension programming for production agriculture, intensive soybean disease short courses, development of OSU Extension literature, and extensive participation in county and statewide educational sessions.

She and her students have contributed to identifying and characterizing new sources of resistance to many soybean pathogens evaluation of new chemistries for effectiveness, focusing primarily on those that are soilborne as well as determining when host resistance and/or chemistries are needed to manage the predominant soybean pathogens in Ohio.

Educational background

Dorrance earned an associate degree in biology from Herkimer County Community College, Herkimer, New York; a bachelor’s degree in forest biology from SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry, Syracuse, New York; a master’s degree in plant pathology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts; and a PhD in plant pathology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, Virginia. She also was a post-doc in plant pathology at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington.

She has received several awards including the Ohio Soybean Council’s Outstanding Achievement Award (2002), the American Soybean Association’s Special Meritorious Award (2008), and the American Phytopathological Society Excellence in Extension Award (2009). She was also designated a Fellow in the American Phytopathological Society (2016).