Blockus headshot 2024

Linda Blockus

Director

150 Bond Life Sciences Center

Phone: (573) 884-1767

Email: BlockusL@missouri.edu

Biography

Linda Blockus has worked at MU for more than 30 years and serves as the Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research. She 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. Dr. Blockus is a long-time member of the Council of Undergraduate Research (CUR), serving as a councilor for the At-Large Division (2002-2005) and a founding councilor/division representative of the Undergraduate Research Program Division (2005-present). She served as the URP Chair and on the CUR Executive Board (2009-2011).  She was elected to serve on the Board of Directors from 2021-2024 and currently is on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research Journal (SPUR).  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.

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