Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The dean emeritus of Mississippi State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is being honored for lifetime achievements by the Institute of Biological Engineering.
William R. "Bill" Fox of Starkville recently received the 2010 Brahm and Sudha Verma Lifetime Visionary Award at the international professional organization's annual meeting in Cambridge, Mass. Fox also is a professor emeritus of agricultural and biological engineering.
The award is given annually to individuals "who have made significant advances in the practice, articulation and vision of biological engineering." Fox was cited for his "early advocacy and leadership in the emerging discipline of biological engineering" that "laid the foundation for all subsequent curricula in the field of biological engineering."
Fox joined MSU's agricultural engineering faculty in 1962 after earning bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Tennessee and a doctorate from Iowa State University. He was promoted to department head in 1967, where he led in establishing the country's first biological engineering curriculum.
As a result of the expansion, the unit's name was changed to the department of agricultural and biological engineering.
In 1989, Fox was named dean of the agriculture college, where he served for 11 years until retirement in 2001.
A registered professional engineer, land surveyor, Realtor, and licensed contractor, Fox earlier was made a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers and was selected for the ASAE/Mississippi Section's Distinguished Service Award.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.