Dr. J. Scott Angle is a national leader in developing the science that supports food production and management of natural resources. As chief executive of the agriculture and environmental sciences arm of a leading land-grant university, he champions public science as a path to improve lives and reduce human suffering.

His accomplished career in government, non-profit international development, and academia informs an approach to leadership based on service, partnership, and drive for impact. An innovator who holds seven patents, Angle has successfully guided multiple organizations through budget shortfalls and other challenges.

Dr. Angle leads nearly 2,300 employees who work in all 67 Florida counties. UF/IFAS encompasses the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Florida Cooperative Extension Service, and the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station.

Angle took the helm at UF/IFAS in July 2020, fresh from his position at the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). As director of NIFA, he led federal support for the science underpinning the success of American agriculture, frequently partnering with land-grant universities.

Prior to his national service, he led the non-profit International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), where he oversaw a staff of more than 800 and coordinated development projects worldwide.

From 2005 to 2015, he served as dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia. During his tenure, the college’s enrollment grew 30 percent. He consolidated the college’s farms and land holdings to create more cohesive research facilities. He also fostered greater diversity and inclusion, creating an assistant dean of diversity position and appointing the first and second female associate deans in the college’s history and the first female academic department head.
Angle worked as professor of soil science at the University of Maryland and later as director of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and Maryland Cooperative Extension. He is widely cited for his scholarship on phytoremediation, the use of plants for extraction of heavy metals from soil.

Angle received his B.S. in agronomy and M.S. in soil science at the University of Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri with an emphasis on soil microbiology.