Longtime NC State Professor LeBlanc Named Head of Biological Sciences
Dr. Gerald LeBlanc, a prominent toxicologist who has been on the NC State faculty for close to three decades, has been named the new head of the university’s Department of Biological Sciences. He assumed his new role on January 11.
LeBlanc has been with NC State since 1989 and is currently a professor in the department. His leadership experience includes serving as director of the Toxicology Program and as interim Biological Sciences department head.
As head of the department, LeBlanc oversees academic, administrative and budgetary matters for more than 1,800 students and 165 faculty, staff and postdoctoral researchers — one of the largest academic departments at NC State. The department, which combines people and programs in biology, genetics, microbiology and toxicology, was created in 2013 to boost interdisciplinary educational opportunities and research collaborations both within the biological sciences and at the discipline’s intersections with the physical, mathematical and earth-system sciences.
LeBlanc’s research focuses on environmental endocrine toxicology — mainly, how environmental signals such as light and temperature regulate biological reproduction and development processes and how environmental chemicals can disrupt these important processes. His research program has been continuously funded since 1990 by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Air Force.
LeBlanc has authored more than 150 research articles in a variety of prestigious academic journals and 17 textbook chapters. He has served on numerous federal and international science advisory committees, panels and boards, including the National Research Council’s committee on Ecological Risk Assessment and as chairman of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Endocrine Disruptors Methods Validation Advisory Committee. He also has been a steering committee member, session chair and keynote speaker for several national and international scientific symposia; an associate editor or editorial board member for numerous scientific journals; and a consultant or expert witness in a number of lawsuits involving toxicity of chemicals.
LeBlanc received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Massachusetts, a master’s degree in biology from Bridgewater State University, and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of South Florida. He also did postdoctoral research in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School.
