Cornell University Dean Benjamin Houlton named as first ISU president finalist

AMES — The first of two finalists to succeed Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen is Benjamin Houlton, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, where he also holds rank as an ecology and evolutionary biology professor.

At the private Ivy League Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cornell, Houlton serves as co-chair of “The 2030 Project: A Cornell Climate Initiative” — aimed at “mobilizing practical climate change solutions for a more resilient society through collaborative work across disciplines universitywide.”

His research interests include “global ecosystem processes, climate change solutions and agricultural sustainability.”

As dean of Cornell — which, like Iowa State, boasts a land grant mission — Houlton also helps lead the Cornell Cooperative Extension throughout New York state.

Houlton’s name was made public Tuesday morning in advance of his visit to campus Wednesday, when he’ll participate in a public forum at 4 p.m. in Iowa State’s Memorial Union.

Before Houlton takes the stage for the forum Wednesday afternoon, the Board of Regents on Wednesday morning will release the name of the second finalist for the job — who’s planning to visit campus for a public forum Thursday.

The two finalists are the only candidates remaining from an original pool of 78 applicants, which a 12-member search committee narrowed down to eight semifinalists and then four finalists last month. Of those four, only three accepted the invitation to continue on to the public portion of the process.

And then another dropped out of contention Friday — leaving just two vying for the job to lead Iowa’s land-grant public university, established nearly 168 years ago in 1858 as the “Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm.”

Wintersteen was named Iowa State’s 16th president — and first female president — in November 2017 and earlier this year announced plans to retire.

“My hope is that the search process will begin very soon, and the new president will assume the role in January of 2026, whereupon I will retire,” Wintersteen wrote in a campus announcement in May.

Houlton, according to his curriculum vitae, has Midwestern roots — earning an undergraduate degree in water chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1998. He earned a master’s in environmental engineering from Syracuse and then two doctorates in ecology and evolutionary biology — one from Cornell University and another from Princeton University.

He was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University and visiting scientist at CSIRO's former Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research in Victoria, Australia before taking an assistant professorship at the University of California-Davis in 2007.

He gained full professorship within the University of California system in 2016 and served as a principal investigator in the UC Office of the President from 2019 to 2022.

He began his tenure at Cornell in 2020 as dean of its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — the campus’ second-largest college, comprised of 18 academic units, more than 600 faculty, 3,600-plus undergraduate students, and about 1,000 graduate students.

In that role, he oversees an annual operating budget of more than $600 million.

Cornell is an Ivy League school and ranked No. 12 across all universities nationally, according to U.S. News & World Report. Globally, it’s ranked No. 16 — with its agriculture sciences program listed at No. 13 in the world.

‘Agriculture innovation ecosystem’

Houlton, according to Cornell, is an accomplished international scientist who has published more than 150 book chapters, abstracts, and articles in scientific journals like Nature, Science, and Nature Climate Change.

He frequently appears on national and regional news programs, according to Cornell, and The New York Times, NPR, Discovery News, MSNBC/Today, and the BBC have covered his work.

Houlton co-founded The N3gative Company — aiming to give farmers and land managers tools to “create, verify and exchange permanent carbon dioxide removal in soil.”

“The company’s approach will scale up permanent carbon dioxide removal in soils around the world to remove millions to billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year while also improving agricultural productivity,” according to Cornell, which lists Houlton as an appointed director of the State University of New York Research Foundation.

The country’s largest university-connected research foundation supports SUNY faculty in educating and researching a range of topics like artificial intelligence, clean energy, biotechnology, longevity, substance addiction, next-gen quantum computing, environmental health and resiliency.

While at Cornell, Houlton in June 2022 testified before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture about “the role of climate research in supporting agricultural resiliency.”

“I believe our agriculture innovation ecosystem can power the breakthroughs needed to tackle society’s most dire threat: a rapidly changing climate, which is severely disrupting U.S. and global food production,” he said in that testimony. “We have an urgent need for substantial and sustained investment in science-based solutions and strategies that can address our climate challenges while benefiting the farm communities that produce the foods that nourish us.

“Agriculture has enormous potential to help cool the planet while feeding it — but only if we accelerate development, testing and implementation of our most promising climate-smart farming innovations,” he said.

Before joining the Ivy League campus, Houlton as a UC-Davis faculty member led that campus’ John Muir Institute of the Environment — “bringing together more than 300 faculty affiliates, 350 postdoctoral researchers, staff and students from across the university with the goal of devising innovative solutions to address the environmental sustainability challenges of the 21st century,” according to Cornell.

In that capacity, he led the OneClimate “Big Idea” — described as an “interdisciplinary, team-based approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help people, ecosystems and agriculture adapt to an uncertain climate future.”

While in California, Houlton worked with indigenous tribes to apply their knowledge in agricultural and environmental sustainability. He also has served as a scientific adviser to a Rockefeller Foundation and World Wildlife Fund project on sustainable agriculture, human nutrition and climate solutions, according to Cornell.

Other searches

Iowa State isn’t the only college or university in Iowa searching for a new president — and it’s not the only to have had finalists drop out.

The Des Moines Area Community College over the summer launched its search to replace President Rob Denson, who announced his retirement in January after 22 years at the helm.

But in early October the DMACC Board of Directors postponed its on-campus finalist interviews after two of the final three “suddenly withdrew their names from consideration.”

“We feel very good about the quality of our third candidate, but we also have reservations about bringing only one finalist to Campus,” DMACC board President Kevin Halterman, chair of the presidential search committee, said in a statement.

“We believe that for a job as complex and desirable as this one, our community deserves to hear from multiple candidates about their vision and leadership styles,” he said. “While this is a disappointing development for our search, we are committed to getting the right candidate, even if it takes longer than we’d originally planned.”

The board on Friday appointed Liang Chee Wee as interim president starting Jan. 1 — when DMACC will resume its search for a permanent president it hopes to install in July.

Wee recently wrapped nearly two years as interim chancellor of Eastern Iowa Community Colleges after serving as president of Northeast Iowa Community College from 2011 to 2022.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com