Blockus headshot 2024

Linda Blockus

Director

110 Q Student Success Center

Phone: (573) 884-1767

Email: BlockusL@missouri.edu

Biography

Linda Blockus has worked at MU for more than 35 years and serves as the Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research. Dr. Blockus is a long-time member of the Council of Undergraduate Research (CUR), and will serve as President in 2027-28, after serving as Treasurer (2025-26) and President-Elect (2026-27).  Prior elected positions in CUR include At-Large Division Councilor (2002-05), founding Councilor/Representative for the Undergraduate Research Program Division (2005-26), Chair of the URP Division and CUR Executive Board (2009-2011), Board of Directors (2021-2024), and Editorial Advisory Board for the Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research Journal (SPUR)(2025-26).  With CUR colleagues Susan Larson and Roger Rowlett, she co-authored the first edition (2012) Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research, which serves as a blueprint for institutions to create an environment supportive of the practice of undergraduate research.

Dr. Blockus earned a PhD in higher education from Mizzou with support areas in black studies and educational & counseling psychology. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth College (biology) and a master’s degree from Boston University (educational leadership). Dr. Blockus took a semester of agriculture courses at Ohio State University as an undergraduate and spent a year as a visiting graduate student at Stanford University. As an undergraduate she spent a summer at the Ohio Agriculture Research and Development Center in Wooster researching insect pests of woody ornamental plants (bushes and trees). She has worked as an academic administrator at Boston University and as an academic advisor at MU. During 2008-2009, she took a leave of absence from MU to serve as a fellow for the Center for Advancing Science and Engineering Capacity at AAAS in Washington, D.C.

Each fall Dr. Blockus teaches Communicating your Research and Scholarship (Comm 4420W) with Dr. Amy Lannin (Director of the Campus Writing Program) and is an adjunct faculty member in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.  She is a member of the MU Council on High Impact Practices (CHIPs).

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