Biochemist and Associate Dean Named Interim Head of College of Natural Sciences at Colorado State University

A veteran professor and administrator who has been with Colorado State University for more than 25 years has been named interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences.

Thomas Sneider, associate dean for instruction and research for the college since 1996, will lead the college’s eight departments, the Center for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education and two interdisciplinary programs. He replaces dean and physicist John Raich, who is retiring after 17 years as dean of the college.

Sneider, a biochemist, did undergraduate work at the University of Detroit and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from the Medical College of Wisconsin. His postdoctoral research was carried out at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Before joining Colorado State, Sneider taught at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and Baylor College of Medicine. He has held a number of academic administrative posts, chairing the Interdisciplinary Graduate Faculty of Cellular and Molecular Biology and serving as director of undergraduate studies and associate chair in the biochemistry department. He founded the annual All-University Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium, now in its eighth year.

He was a visiting professor at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Sneider’s research has focused on the enzymology and functional significance of reactions that modify DNA.

Sneider has received a number of awards, including being a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, and earned a National Institutes of Health Research Career Development Award, a National Institutes of Health-Fogarty Center Senior International Fellowship Award for 1982-83 and Colorado State’s Oliver P. Pennock Distinguished Service Award in 1995.