The Gaylon S. Campbell Distinguished Professorship was created to honor the 27-year career of Professor Campbell as a faculty member at Washington State University. Washington State University is world renowned for its contributions to soil and environmental physics, partially through Dr. Campbell’s contributions. Two textbooks written by Dr. Campbell, one on soil physics and one on environmental biophysics, have been invaluable resources for students, professors and professional scientists. Dr. Campbell also designed and built innovative instruments for use in his work. These instruments later helped launch several companies which continue to build and sell his designs. Campbell Scientific, Inc., founded in 1974 by Dr. Campbell and his brothers, provides measurement and control products for long term monitoring. Decagon Devices, founded in 1983, designs, manufactures, and markets instruments for biophysical measurements. Dr. Campbell retired from WSU in 1998 to become Vice President of Engineering at Decagon Devices. During his tenure as professor at WSU, Dr. Campbell served as major professor for 30 plus graduate students and inspired hundreds more graduates and undergraduates with his research and teaching in the area of environmental biophysics. This legacy continues today as his son, Dr. Colin Campbell, together with Dr. Doug Cobos (both working in Research and Development at Decagon) continue to teach the course that Gaylon developed.
This Distinguished Professorship builds on Dr. Campbell’s legacy of research and teaching to develop and refine models of water, gas, and energy fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, with a focus on agriculture and other managed ecosystems. The Distinguished Professor will bridge the disciplines of soil and crop sciences to enhance the understanding of how plants interact with their environment, and ultimately use this knowledge to improve crops and cropping systems for food, fuel and fiber production.
Uses and Purposes
Distributions from this Fund shall be used to supplement the salary of the holder of the professorship, to pay salaries for his or her assistants, and to pay expenses associated with the holder’s scholarly work.