Dr. Mark Hussey was appointed as the Vice Chancellor and Dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences in December 2008. As Vice Chancellor, Dr. Hussey provides leadership and oversight for the Texas A&M System agricultural agencies: Texas AgriLife Research, the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, the Texas Forest Service and the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory. In addition, he also serves as Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University.
Hussey is a native of southern Illinois where he received a bachelor of science in biology from the University of Illinois. He continued his education at Texas A&M University where he received a master of science and PhD plant breeding.
Most recently, Dr. Hussey served as the director of Texas AgriLife Research. The agency has more than 1,600 employees who conduct research improving life through science and technology. During his tenure as director, he led the agency through a strategic branding initiative and started a corporate relations team that brought in research contracts worth more than $15 million dollars.
From 1983 to 1985, Hussey was an Assistant Professor at the Texas A&M Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Weslaco, Texas, where he conducted forage breeding and management research. He then joined the faculty of the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in 1985 where he was promoted in rank to serve as Professor in 1997. In 2001, Dr. Hussey became Professor and Head of the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, a position that he held until 2005. Dr. Hussey was named Associate Director of Programs for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in April of 2005.
As co-leader of a collaborative forage grass improvement team, Dr. Hussey’s research focused on the development of new breeding methods for subtropical forage and bioenergy crops including the use of molecular tools to better understand the regulation and control of cold tolerance, hybrid vigor, seed production, and reproduction in those species.
