CFANS Professor Named to ARS Hall of Fame

Retired Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and Agronomy and Plant Genetics Professor Emeritus Carroll P. Vance was among three scientists who earned a place in the ARS Science Hall of Fame for pioneering research in agriculture and for outstanding lifelong achievements in agricultural science and technology.

Vance is an international authority on plant physiology whose research on legumes is helping to ensure agricultural sustainability at a time when population growth is increasing a global demand for food. His work has focused on how crops respond to nutrient deficient soils, legume genomics and symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF), which gives rhizobia bacteria in legumes the ability to form root structures vital to plant development. Vance has made major contributions to increasing the genetic diversity of soybeans, producing 30,000 lines that have been used worldwide and led to many improved varieties. His studies of alfalfa, lupine and common bean have increased our understanding of how they develop, regulate SNF, and respond to nutrient deficiencies common to many soils.

The two other recipients are Joan K. Lunney, supervisory research scientist in ARS’s Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland and an internationally-recognized expert in swine immunology, genomics and the genetics of resistance to infectious diseases; and Kerry O’Donnell, a microbiologist in ARS’s Mycotoxin Prevention and Applied Microbiology Research Unit in Peoria, Illinois who is internationally recognized for innovative research that helped revolutionize the field of fungal systematics and fundamentally changed how fungi are detected, identified, and classified according to their relationships.

“These scientists represent the best of the best in the Agricultural Research Service—tackling some of the world’s most critical agricultural issues we face today and, in the future,” ARS Administrator Chavonda Jacobs-Young said. “They are renown-international leaders who continue to make significant contributions through innovation, dedication and creativity in improving agricultural production and products.” 

The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific in-house research agency. ARS focuses daily on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in agricultural research results in $20 of economic impact.