McLean named Regents' Professor by TSUS

Posted by University News Service

Nov. 19, 2012

Robert J.C. McLean, university professor of microbiology at Texas State University, has been named a Regents’ Professor by the Texas State University System Board of Regents.

The designation honors exceptional and outstanding members of the System’s professoriate who have achieved excellence in teaching, research and publication, and community service, while demonstrating an unwavering dedication to their students, their university and their community.

It is a lifetime designation bestowed by the Board of Regents upon tenured faculty who have been acknowledged as exceptional by their peers and students and recommended by the TSUS Foundation Board of Directors, the chancellor and their university president.

McLean joined the Texas State Biology Department faculty in 1993. He has helped raise the prominence of the biology program to a national level by developing research programs to investigate the biological factors associated with the growth of biofilms and the relationship between bacteria and mineral formation.

He has earned numerous awards for outstanding teaching at the institutional, state and national level and has updated multiple courses in microbiology, pathogenic microbiology, microbial ecology and physiology.

McLean’s support for the scholarship, research and thesis projects of his students has resulted in numerous contributions to regional and national research journals. Eight of his students have received awards at the institutional, state or national level.

McLean holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Guelph and a doctorate from the University of Calgary. Both are in microbiology.

The Texas State University System Board of Regents is the governing body for Texas’ oldest university system, which comprises eight institutions: Lamar University; Sam Houston State University; Texas State University; Sul Ross State University; Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College; Lamar Institute of Technology; Lamar State College-Orange; and Lamar State College-Port Arthur.