Mark Sheridan, Ph.D.

Mark Sheridan is vice provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs and dean of the Graduate School, a position he has held since 2013. In this role, he provides leadership to the division of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, including academic leadership to the university's interdisciplinary graduate programs and coordination of graduate and postdoctoral education with the research and other academic activities of Texas Tech University.

Prior to joining Texas Tech, Sheridan was a Jordan Engberg Distinguished Professor at North Dakota State University, where he received citations for excellence in teaching and research, as well as the university’s highest honor, the Faculty Lectureship. Sheridan also served as associate dean of the College of Graduate and Interdisciplinary Studies, where he provided leadership to graduate students pursuing institutional training grants, recruited and supported students with fellowships, and conducted fundraising activities to support graduate scholarships, fellowships, and assistantships. He also served as the director of the Interdisciplinary Cellular and Molecular Biology program. From 1999-2003, Sheridan served as the director of North Dakota's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), during which time he led the federal-state-private sector partnership to enhance research infrastructure, resulting in increased per capita federal funding from 33rd to 24th in the nation and over a 230% increase in the success of EPSCoR-supported research for competitive grants.

Sheridan's research is in the areas of comparative physiology and endocrinology (the regulation of growth, development, and metabolism in animals, and the disruption of these processes by environmental contaminants) and is nationally and internationally recognized. He has received over $34 million in grants from numerous funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and, for over 35 years, from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Importantly, he has served as a key player in research infrastructure development and in multi-investigator collaborations. The work of the Sheridan lab has been disseminated widely at professional conferences and through more than 160 high-impact publications, including Stanford University and Elsevier’s top 1% world-cited researchers. The recognition and importance of his work is demonstrated through invitations to 65 plenary and state-of-the-art presentations and 112 seminars and serving as a visiting professor at universities in 10 countries, including Brazil, China, Japan, Norway, and Sweden.

Sheridan has advanced his field through numerous professional activities, including active memberships and leadership positions in several professional organizations. He served as chair of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology's division of Comparative Endocrinology, president of the North Dakota chapter of Sigma Xi, and president of the North Dakota Academy of Science.

He has served on numerous program and accreditation review and advisory teams, including the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council--US National Committee for the International Union of Biological Sciences, developing US research policy, US national working member identifying “Grand Challenges” in endocrinology, and Committee of Visitors, National Science Foundation (Biological Sciences Directorate).

He has also organized and served on program committees for many professional conferences, including the North American Society of Comparative Endocrinology, International Symposia on Fish Endocrinology and the International Congresses of Comparative Endocrinology. In addition, Sheridan has served as a panelist and ad hoc grant reviewer for over a dozen international and domestic funding agencies. He was an ad hoc journal reviewer for over 35 titles, an editorial board member and editor for six international journals, including current service as co-editor-in-chief of General and Comparative Endocrinology. 

Sheridan’s important contributions to American higher education include his advocacy work at the U.S. state and federal levels, including testimony before legislative bodies, which have helped shape education and research policy and have increased federal and state appropriations in support of research and higher education.

Sheridan has received numerous honors, including fellow status for the Royal Society of Biology, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the National Science Council in Taiwan, and the Programa de Intercãmbio Internacional em Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação in Brazil. He was also named a Marisco Scholar at the University of Denver.

A native of California, Sheridan earned a bachelor’s in zoology, a master’s in biology from Humboldt State University, and a doctorate in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley.