As the Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences (CAS) at Colorado State University, Dr. Carolyn Lawrence-Dill leads efforts to address global challenges in food safety, food security, wellness and economic prosperity through the sustainable management of natural resources. Both on campus and at 11 research centers across Colorado, CAS researchers collaborate with communities and industry to explore potential advancements in food production and agribusiness. Through academic programs centered on sustainability, students engage in hands-on learning, developing the professional skills, technical knowledge and cultural awareness necessary to advance agriculture in Colorado and beyond.
Lawrence-Dill, a native of Texas, received her bachelor’s degree from Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. She earned her master’s degree at Texas Tech University studying cotton physiology and her doctoral degree from the University of Georgia, investigating how maize chromosomes segregate during cell division. After a postdoc in bioinformatics at Iowa State University (ISU), she worked for USDA-ARS as a research geneticist and lead scientist for the Maize Genetics and Genomics Database. In 2014, she joined the faculty at ISU. Her research focused on team science approaches to developing frameworks for computing on gene function and phenotype for crops. Lawrence-Dill served as the elected chair of the Interdepartmental Bioinformatics and Computational Biology graduate program at ISU and co-founded a novel graduate degree specialization in Predictive Plant Phenomics that spans six majors. She served as the ISU Associate Dean for Research and Discovery in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Associate Director of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station.
Lawrence-Dill was an elected member and 2015 chair of the Maize Genetics Executive Committee, a founding member and 2019 chair of the North American Plant Phenotyping Network board of directors, an elected member of the DivSeek International board of directors and an appointed member of the American Society of Plant Biologists’ Policy Committee. She currently serves on numerous boards and advisory panels including the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research Board of Directors and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center Scientific Advisory Board.