André-Denis Wright is a microbiologist and the Senior Vice President and Provost of the University of Oklahoma. Previously, Dr. Wright was an Endowed Dean of the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University (2018-2021); an endowed Professor and Director of the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Arizona (2014-2018), and former Chair of the Department of Animal Science at the University of Vermont (2009- 2014).
For more than two decades, Dr. Wright’s research investigated host-gut microbe interrelationships within and between different groups of production animals, such as dairy cattle, beef cattle, and sheep; the dietary effects on different microbial populations in the rumen; the composition of bacteria and methanogenic archaea in the human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of individuals with healthy colon, diverticulosis, inflammatory bowel disease, colon polyps, or colorectal cancer, the identification of GIT microorganisms as potential biomarkers for the early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer and other colonic diseases in humans, and understanding the link between GIT methanogens and obesity in humans.
Dr. Wright received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Guelph in Canada. He has published 114 peer-reviewed papers, contributed 18 book chapters, presented 100 conference papers, and delivered 34 plenary lectures in 10 countries. Dr. Wright has served on review panels for the USDA, NSF, and NASA. He has also served as an external scientific reviewer for the governments of Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan, Scotland, and Switzerland, and in 2008, he had a ciliated protozoan named after him, Apokeronopsis wrighti, in recognition of his contributions to microbiology.
