Studying bugs so we can feed 12 billion people
“Gifts allows us to explore solutions and dig deep into an idea that we know is going to work and where that little extra funding will help us get there.”
- Dr. Alejandra Huerta, National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
Creating Endowed Positions
Colorado State University’s faculty and researchers are leading in conservation, investigating cancer cures, finding ways to feed the world, tackling world challenges, nurturing future leaders, and growing Rams.
Dr. Jan Leach came from humble beginnings, growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, as one of five children. Her father was a mail carrier, her mother, a homemaker. Leach began her studies in microbiology, thinking she might become a nurse. It was while working in a lab to earn money for school that she found her passion - how diseases and plants interact.
Today, as the Research Associate Dean for the College of Agricultural Sciences, and University Distinguished Professor with a lab dedicated to research, Leach and her students are improving health benefits of crop plants, developing novel tools for detecting and monitoring plant microbes. Leach and her students have found things no one else has found.
Dr. Leach, like so many faculty at CSU, serve and advise national and international projects, programs and institutions. Thanks to an endowed donor gift, she is deeply exploring how to make plants more resistant to destructive wheat field pests. The solutions they create in Leach’s CSU lab could help feed the world’s growing population.
Endowed positions allow Colorado State University to attract leading scholars, researchers, and teachers with distinction and significant contributions in their fields to enhance CSU’s mission to provide a world-class education. These funds promote CSU’s expertise in particular fields, recognize individual talent and impact.