[AMES, IOWA, October 15, 2021]—Dr. Katherine Gross, a highly decorated scientist and educator, will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at a ceremony on Thursday, October 21, 2021 in Ames, Iowa. The award recognizes outstanding alumni from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State.
Gross performed innovative research for more than forty years in botany and ecological sciences. Throughout her career on faculty at Ohio State University and Michigan State, she performed research efforts to improve biodiversity, the production of biofuels and plant sustainability. She led research on species diversity in plant communities, with a focus on how nutrient input and management impacted the diversity, productivity and composition in grasslands.
As the director of Michigan State’s Kellogg Biological Station, one of the National Science Foundation’s Long-Term Ecological Research programs, she expanded both the spectrum of scientific discovery and the science education and outreach programs.
Gross has held a number of leadership positions within the field of ecology, including serving as vice president and president of the Ecological Society of America, which awarded her the Distinguished Service Citation in 2008 and named her a fellow in 2012. She also served on and chaired a number of national advisory boards including the Biological Sciences Directorate Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation. She has been an editor-in-chief for the international ecology journal Oecologia since 2007. Gross retired from Michigan State in 2021 as a University Distinguished Professor.
Gross earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Iowa State and her Ph.D. from Michigan State University.