Please welcome Dr. Jeremy James as the interim dean for the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES). He will serve in this role through August 31, 2025, or until a permanent dean assumes the position, whichever occurs first. Jeremy replaces the CAFES interim dean, Bill Hendricks, who retired after serving Cal Poly for 30 years.

James joined Cal Poly in 2020 as department head for the Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences (NRES) Department, which serves more than 850 students across three majors. In this role, he has emphasized shared governance, distributed leadership and applied student-centered research to enhance student success and advance the university’s polytechnic mission.

During his tenure, the NRES Department has experienced significant growth. Applications for the forest and fire sciences major have doubled, and enrollment capacity has increased by 60% to meet rising student demand. Jeremy also collaborated with faculty and Cal Poly’s Swanton Pacific Ranch to secure a $4.2 million CAL FIRE grant to prepare students to address California’s mounting wildfire challenges.

Jeremy teaches a range of courses related to his scholarship and offers students hands-on opportunities supporting his ecosystem management research. For example, a recent student-led paper published in Environmental Research Letters evaluated how climatic variation impacts carbon capture across California’s diverse ecosystems.