Dr. Pawan Kahol, associate dean for the College of Natural and Applied Sciences, has accepted the position of interim graduate dean. The appointment is effective July 1, 2011, and will cover a two-year period, with a national search to commence in fall 2012.

“I anticipate Dr. Kahol will spend much of his first year discussing the opportunities and challenges of graduate education with faculty, students, deans and department heads,” said Provost Belinda McCarthy. “Those discussions will be extremely important in identifying the experiences and expertise needed to provide leadership for graduate education at Missouri State University.”

Kahol previously served as associate dean for graduate education at Wichita State University, before joining Missouri State as the head of the physics, astronomy and materials science department in 2005. He has also worked at the University of Leeds, England, during 1979-82; as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Stuttgart University, Germany, during 1983-84; as a research associate at Stuttgart University, Germany, during 1984-86; and as a research fellow at the University of West Virginia during 1986-88.

During his professional career, Kahol has published more than 165 refereed research papers in physics, chemistry and materials science. He made more than 170 national/international/regional presentations, chaired sessions at national/international conferences, received in excess of 2.5 million dollars in research funding, served as a review panelist at several funding agencies and co-authored 16 volumes of solution manuals for both the calculus-based and the trigonometry-based introductory physics textbooks, which were published by Addison Wesley. He was recently recognized with the 2009 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Missouri Professor of the Year award.

“I am looking forward to working with all who have interest in graduate education in enhancing the culture of appreciation, participation and engagement at Missouri State,” Kahol said.