Agricultural Research Service
50th Anniversary

Joseph Jen

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• Agricultural Research Service
• Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
• Economic Research Service
• National Agricultural Statistics Service

Jen is a widely recognized agricultural scientist and educator, with experience in both the public and private sectors. Since 1992, Jen has served as the dean of the College of Agriculture at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. In this capacity, Jen oversaw eleven departments with 3,500 students, 250 faculty and staff, and a budget in excess of $30 million.

From 1986 to 1992, Jen was division chairman of the University of Georgia’s Division of Food Science and Technology in Athens, Georgia. He served as director of research at the Campbell Institute of Research and Technology for the Campbell Soup Company from 1980 to 1986. He was an associate professor at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University in 1979.

Jen was a food science and biochemistry professor at Clemson University from 1969-1979. From 1975 to 1976, he served as a research food technologist at the Horticultural Research Institute for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland.

As a Dean, Jen has earned the reputation as a successful administrator who has established several innovative cooperative agreements and proposals with private industry.

Jen received his B.S. degree in agricultural chemistry from National Taiwan University in 1960. He earned a M.S. degree in food science from Washington State University in 1964 and a Ph.D degree in comparative biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969. He also received an MBA degree from Southern Illinois University in 1986.

Jen was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists in 1992 and received the Distinguished Educator Award from the National Association of Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture in 1999. In 2000, he was appointed by the White House Office of Science and Technology to be a U.S. delegate in the U.S.- Japan Millennium Study.