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In a major contribution to fishery conservation, Michigan State University is establishing an endowed scholar program to ensure healthy environments for fish and aquatic resources.

The Stanislaus F. Snieszko Endowed Scholar Program in Aquatic Animal Medicine, named for a world-renowned fish health scientist, will be a catalyst to bridge science with policy and provide leadership to public and private organizations to conserve the nation’s wildlife, aquatic animals and related natural resources.

This program will be housed in MSU AgBioResearch. Mohamed Faisal was chosen to direct this program and be the first S.F. Snieszko Scholar. He is a professor of pathobiology in MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine and a professor of fisheries and wildlife in MSU's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Faisal will work in tandem with MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.

This program will support MSU graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, natural resource managers, policy makers and allied constituents to develop knowledge, tools and methods required to understand and better manage the health of aquatic resources.

Faisal is a world-renowned aquatic veterinarian, whose research has advanced the knowledge in the fields of diseases of aquatic organisms and environmental pollution. His research has generated novel information on disease causation and processes, molecular and serological diagnostic assays, new medication, and was instrumental in the development of disease control management strategies regionally, nationally, and internationally

The Snieszko program will be aligned with MSU's Executive in Residence program as well as the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the university’s Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management Program and related industries and non-governmental organizations.

Snieszko, an émigré from Poland, was the founder and director of the Fish Health Laboratory in Kearneysville, W. Va., where over several decades he hired some of the world’s most influential fish health scientists.

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