College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni to receive highest honors

Ames, IA – On Friday, April 29, the Iowa State University Alumni Association and Iowa State University Foundation will current the college’s highest awards throughout the Distinguished Awards Celebration. Awards offered embrace the Distinguished Alumni Award, Honorary Alumni Award, and the Order of the Knoll.

The Distinguished Alumni Award can be bestowed on two CALS alumni this yr. This award is the highest honor given to Iowa State alumni by means of the Iowa State University Alumni Association. It is offered to alumni nationally and/or internationally acknowledged for his or her excellent contributions to their professions or life’s work.

This yr’s honorees embrace Mark Erlander (’84 MS biochemistry and biophysics) and Robert Walton (’61 PhD animal science).

Mark Erlander, chief government officer at Cardiff Oncology, focuses on directing drug discovery efforts and creating precision most cancers diagnostics. Before this, he labored because the chief scientific officer at bioTheranostics, which developed the Breast Cancer Index check to decide if a breast most cancers affected person will profit from prolonged hormonal remedy to keep away from the chance of a recurrence of their most cancers.

Robert Walton, retired CEO and chairman emeritus of the American Breeder Service, is acknowledged as one of the highest agri-business leaders within the nation and globally famend for his contributions to genetics analysis. Walton carried out progeny testing of dairy bulls and developed a mathematical formulation for evaluating bulls that revolutionized the dairy cattle genetics trade and was subsequently adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition, Walton promoted the use of frozen semen and direct herd advertising and marketing to make high quality genetic materials obtainable to producers in distant places, which led to the event of synthetic insemination coaching faculties throughout the nation. His efforts undoubtedly remodeled the dairy trade and performed a major function within the beef cattle and plant genetics fields.

The public awards ceremony will happen at 2 p.m. CT within the Sun Room of the Memorial Union on Iowa State’s campus. It can even be livestreamed.

Read extra concerning the Distinguished Awards Celebration and honorees.