Binayak Mohanty, Ph.D., with the Texas A&M University Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and Catharine Ross, Ph.D., with the Department of Nutrition, are part of the 2026 cohort of Texas A&M University Distinguished Professors.
The two College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty members are among eight scholars across Texas A&M this year who have earned the honor, the highest for Texas A&M faculty. The 2026 class also includes faculty members from the College of Architecture, College of Engineering, the School of Law and the Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine. Within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 13 faculty members currently hold the distinction.
The University Distinguished Professor designation identifies faculty members who are preeminent in their field. Furthermore, these academics have made at least one transformational contribution or substantial intellectual leap forward in their discipline. University Distinguished Professors retain their current title but add the new distinction.
“Over decades, Drs. Mohanty and Ross have created life-saving innovations in their respective fields,” said Jeffrey W. Savell, Ph.D., vice chancellor and dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Their contributions represent the highest level of what everyone in our College aspires to — putting knowledge to work for people in Texas and far beyond.”
Mohanty chosen for contributions to soil water modeling
A global authority on soil moisture and hydrologic processes, Mohanty is a Regents Professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. For more than three decades, he has led research on how water moves in soil over time — at scales ranging from single fields to entire regions across the globe — using ground-based measurements, field experiments and satellite data. His research helps answer practical questions tied to agriculture, drought, flooding, groundwater recharge, ecosystem resilience and environmental pollution. The work also aids forecasting by improving how soil moisture and hydrologic processes are measured and modeled across different landscapes. Mohanty’s methods have informed work by federal science agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Among many recognitions of his scientific impact, Mohanty is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Ross honored for work in experimental nutrition
Ross is a professor in the Department of Nutrition and associate dean for faculty affairs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. A preeminent nutrition scientist, she works with investigators at the Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture on problems of maternal-child health and nutrition. Ross is known for decades of influential research on pregnancy, lactation, immune development, and vitamins A and D. Her work has helped shape experimental nutrition and public health policy. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she has advised the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and National Institutes of Health. In 2024, the Journal of Nutrition honored her by creating the A. Catharine Ross Award in Experimental Nutrition.
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