Ramaswamy

Sonny Ramaswamy will take the helm as director of Purdue Agricultural Research Programs and associate dean of agriculture on Jan. 1.

Head of the Kansas State University Department of Entomology since 1997, Ramaswamy succeeds Randy Woodson, who became dean of agriculture a year ago.

"Sonny is a visionary and optimist who has the academic leadership and research experience necessary to move Purdue agricultural science programs forward in this continually evolving world," Woodson says. "We are anxious for him to arrive at Purdue in January, but in the meantime he will be on campus often during the interim to begin working with faculty and staff."

His major goal is to help position Purdue Agriculture as the pre-eminent land-grant research college in the United States.

"One of my roles at Purdue will be to facilitate and encourage more creative team approaches for research projects and to persuade more faculty to pursue these opportunities," Ramaswamy says. "I also will seek increased funding and new sources of financial support."

Purdue Agriculture's strategic goals include expanded interdisciplinary research in environmental sciences, functional foods, safer food systems, plant-grown pharmaceuticals, and comparative medicine to find treatments and cures for diseases in people and animals.

Ramaswamy says these types of partnerships are the future of agriculture.

"The conundrum for institutions such as Purdue is the ever-increasing population growth and the diminishing natural resources, including agricultural land," he says. "The question is not how we deal with these opposing issues, but how well can science-based knowledge be used to develop better utilization of resources.

"As scientists in colleges of agriculture, we must now focus on areas such as human and animal health, genomics and biotechnology, post-genomics research and development, bio-based products, food security and safety, human nutrition, invasive species issues, and environmental, natural resource and land use management. Then we must successfully transfer these research results from the laboratory bench to public use."

After earning his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India, Ramaswamy completed his doctorate at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He then did post-doctoral research at Michigan State University before joining the faculty at Mississippi State University in 1982. Kansas State hired him in 1997.

In 2002, the university bestowed upon him the KSU President's Award as Outstanding Department Head.

Contact Ramaswamy at sonny@ksu.edu