University of Wisconsin-Madison Dean heading to Washington

Molly Jahn, Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has just accepted a presidential appointment to serve as Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In this new role, Jahn will provide leadership for the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the Economic Research Service, and the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The largest of those units, the ARS, funds approximately $1.1 billion in research projects annually. Some 2,100 scientists and 8,000 employees work at more than 100 ARS research facilities around the nation. For long-time readers of Hoard's Dairyman, you will be familar with one of the many research functions provided by ARS — USDA sire and cow evaluations.

Jahn will begin her new duties November 9. University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin has granted Jahn a one-year leave from her duties as Dean to accept the post. The chancellor will confer with Provost Paul DeLuca and others before identifying a transition plan for CALS leadership.

Jahn has served as CALS Dean since August 2006 when she became the college’s first female
Dean. Her tenure has included several major landmarks for the college, including winning a $130 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to establish the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center on campus. Since her arrival, extramural research funding at CALS has increased by 48 percent.

Prior to arriving at the UW, Jahn served as a professor of plant breeding and genetics and plant biology at Cornell University from 1991-2006. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1980 from Swarthmore College. She holds graduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University.

"There are many exciting and important changes already underway at USDA
with the inauguration of the National Institute of Food and
Agriculture," notes Jahn. "In my position, I will join the team charged with
transformative change to this federal agency whose history and future
is so tied to the land grant university system and to our nation's
agriculture and food supply. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be
a part of the conversation about our national priorities relating to
agriculture, food, nutrition, energy, and the environment, and I
believe that this opportunity will allow me to build on some of the
great work that we all have done here in CALS and apply it on national
and international levels," she went on to say.