A professor recently named as a fellow of the Crop Science Society of America, the highest award achievement for agronomy, will soon be joining the ISU community as the new department head of agronomy.Steven Fales, professor and head of Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Agronomy, will become the head of Iowa State’s agronomy department June 1, 2001. Fales was named a fellow of the Crop Science Society of America last year.Fales succeeds Tom Loynachan, professor of agronomy, who has served as interim department head since the departure of Ron Cantrell. Cantrell left in August 1998 to become director general of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.Fales’ areas of expertise include forage crops and grazing systems for dairy cattle. Before he started specializing in dairy cattle, he studied the utilization of fiber in low quality forages for beef cattle, he said.He has been a professor of agronomy at Penn State since 1985 and department head since 1995. He was an assistant professor and postdoctoral associate at the University of Georgia from 1980 to 1984. He also received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Rhode Island in 1969, a master’s in plant and soil science at the University of Rhode Island in 1977 and a doctorate in agronomy at Purdue University in 1980.Fales said he “is really excited to come to one of the top agricultural schools in the nation and join such a wonderful team of faculty and staff.” He said he has known several of the faculty and staff members for years and is excited to work with ISU students. He is also very excited to work with the $80 million agronomy endowment, which the department received from an anonymous donor in 1999, Fales said, which he didn’t have any specific plans for.As the department head, Fales will lead the department, hire new people and provide outreach for students and faculty, said Richard Ross, dean of the College of Agriculture.”Dr. Fales has an extraordinary vision for the future of agronomy and a superior record of leadership and service. He is the kind of leader we sought for our agronomy department at Iowa State,” Ross said.