Dr. Patrick Stover joined the Texas A&M University System in 2018 when he was appointed Vice Chancellor and Dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M AgriLife. In this role, he oversees the organization’s teaching, research, extension, and service missions. In addition, to serving as Vice Chancellor & Dean, Dr. Stover serves as the Director for AgriLife Research.
Dr. Stover sees the greatest opportunities for transformational advances through “Precision Nutrition” to meet the needs of both urban and rural populations through healthy food systems, public health, job creation, and safety. These opportunities provide incentives to strengthen collaboration across the agency’s research faculty; among its research, extension, service, and education programs; and with external partners all over the world.
Recent Leadership
Previously, Dr. Stover served as director of the Cornell University Division of Nutritional Sciences, which is among the largest and highest ranked academic nutrition programs globally. The Division of Nutritional Sciences grew markedly during his tenure both in its research funding and its portfolio of academic programs. Dr. Stover led efforts to aggressively recruit and diversify the faculty, secure extramural research support, and expand the division’s audiences through on-campus and distance education. He also created vital partnerships with:
- World Health Organization
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Private sector entities
Research Interests
Dr. Stover’s research team has focused its work on studying one-carbon metabolism, a process essential for replicating the genome and maintaining genome stability. Aberrations in one-carbon metabolism, due to interactions among nutrition and common gene variants, are tightly linked to several common human pathologies. The Stover research group investigates the chemical, biochemical, genetic, and epigenetic mechanisms, and the associated pathways, within the one-carbon metabolic network. These processes underlie the relationships between nutrition, metabolism, and risk for congenital disabilities, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. The essential vitamins B12, folate, and riboflavin play a central role in one-carbon metabolism; a primary focus of the group’s research has been to understand the regulation of folate cofactor partitioning among the anabolic pathways within the metabolic network and the role of this regulation in disease etiology.
Education
A first-generation college student, Dr. Stover graduated from Saint Joseph’s University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, went on to earn a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the Medical College of Virginia, and then completed his postdoctoral studies in nutritional sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
Awards and Honors
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016
- President of the American Society for Nutrition, 2016
- American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2014
- SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, 2014
- The Osborne and Mendel Award, 2014
- American Society for Nutrition, 2014
- MERIT award from NIDDK-NIH, 2014
- Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Clinton, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers, 1996
- Outstanding Educator four times by Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholars