Risch reports for duty at Arkansas Biosciences Institute

Tom Risch (pictured), interim executive director and vice-provost for research and tech transfer at the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University, has secured the job on a permanent basis.
Arkansas Biosciences Institute is a research collaboration focused on medical and agricultural research backed by Arkansas State and Arkansas Children’s Hospital together with University of Arkansas’s divisions of agriculture and medical sciences and its campus in Fayetteville.
Risch took the interim position at the initiative’s Arkansas State University unit at the start of the current academic year.
After completing a post-doctoral research program at Auburn University, Risch joined Arkansas State University in 2001 and was subsequently promoted to become assistant professor in 2006 and professor in 2011.
He currently serves as the university’s Judd Hill Endowed chair of environmental biology, lending his expertise in specialised animal sciences.
Risch previously chaired Arkansas State University’s Department of Biological Sciences from 2010 until 2018 , alongside a four-year spell as director of its environmental science graduate program from 2009 until 2013.