Colorado State University

Monfort Professor

Brian Munsky
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Associate Professor Brian Munsky is an internationally recognized expert in the development and application of algorithms to explain and predict the complex behavior of biomolecular systems. His remarkably collaborative and interdisciplinary research helps to improve our understanding of biological processes and revolutionized the utility of the chemical master equation, once widely viewed as a purely theoretical concept. Now, thanks to Munksy’s provably accurate algorithm, it is solvable and useful in a myriad of practical applications.

With an exceptionally creative mind, he formulates innovative and real-world-applicable solutions to complex theoretical questions critically impacting human and animal health. He has published 63 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, was the principal organizer of the 15th annual q-bio Conference at CSU and has generated more than $5.4 million in external research funding. He conceptualized, organized, edited and published with MIT Press a unique community-written textbook featuring 30 integrated chapters by 70 authors.

Not only is Munsky a leader in his fields, he continuously strives to teach and provide for the next generations of researchers. To date, he has mentored four postdocs, three graduate students and 16 undergraduates, and he is currently mentoring one postdoc, five graduate students and two undergrads. He helped start the international Quantitative Biology Summer School in 2010, which was initially funded by NIH to mentor graduate students and postdocs in q-bio research and education and now attracts hundreds of applicants yearly, and he founded the Undergraduate Quantitative Biology Summer School in Fort Collins in 2021.

Gordon and Joan Bishop Professorship

Yvette Nout-Lomas
Associate Professor
Department of  Clinical Sciences

Associate Professor Yvette Nout-Lomas is an invaluable member of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Her focused research efforts have been impacted by her heavier-than-average clinical service and teaching assignments requiring daytime, after-hours and intermittent emergency responsibilities. Yet, she continuously demonstrates excellence in all areas and works relentlessly to meet the needs of her students, patients and research collaborators.

Nationally and internationally recognized for her contributions to advancing equine neurology, Nout-Lomas’ research efforts center on horse gait assessment, spinal cord injury and comparative neuroscience with a goal to improve diagnostic capabilities and treatment options regarding neurologic disease in horses. She has authored more than 85 publications and 73 research abstracts and has attained more than $530,000 in externally funded research awards as principal investigator or co-investigator and more than $190,000 in internally funded awards as PI or Co-I.

Nout-Lomas is a Diplomate in both the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care. To date, she has mentored nine ACVIM residents, one previous and one current ACVECC resident and more than six other residents as well as 13 professional veterinary medicine students.

She currently serves on the Department of Clinical Sciences Equine Medicine Strategic Planning and Equine Emergency and Critical Care Strategic Planning committees, the CVMBS Equine Veterinary Health System Working Group Service Advisory Council and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and she is an organizer of the DCS Annual Conference Equine Program.

Gordon and Joan Bishop Professorship

Kelly Wrighton
Associate Professor
Department of Soil and Crop Sciences

Associate Professor Kelly Wrighton’s trailblazing research in microbiome data science has lent itself to her international distinction as a transformative scientific leader. Her and her lab’s research findings are embodying the “-omics” revolution — studying not only individual components of Earth sciences but also the interactions between them — and making leaps in our cross-disciplinary understanding while overturning scientific paradigms and exploring novel ideas.

As a teacher and mentor, Wrighton prioritizes a balanced lens of classroom and experiential learning with emphasis on research, inclusion and equity. With two graduate students, she developed Graduate Researchers Across Microbiomes to create a scientific support network and foster cross-disciplinary discussion among early-career scientists researching microbiomes in various fields of study. GRAM has grown to include more than 50 undergrads, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in 10 distinct academic programs and is a lead organizer of the Front Range Microbiome Symposium.

Wrighton has authored 88 publications, from which the many citations generated ranked her in the top 1% of cross-field cited authors in the Web of Science in 2021. Her expertise and enthusiasm in conveying complex scientific relationships in layman’s terms is highly sought after, garnering nearly 80 invitations to present at national and international meetings — multiple for the National Academies of Sciences’ Microbiome Seminar Series — and an invitation to share testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology.