AGRO Fellow Awards

Leah S. Riter holds a BS in Chemistry from University of Florida and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Purdue University. After a post-doc at Eli Lilly where she focused on proteomics for pharmaceutical discovery, she joined Monsanto (now Bayer Crop Science) in 2005.

Leah’s first role was in the R&D Chemistry organization where she developed analytical screening tools which enabled pipeline advancement decisions on crop protection and biotech products. After transitioning to Monsanto’s Regulatory Sciences organization in 2012, she has contributed to safety assessments for global registration and stewardship of crop protection products and herbicide tolerant biotech crops through innovations in analytical science. She has authored 27 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is a member of Monsanto’s Scientific Fellow Program.

Leah has been a member and an active volunteer for the AGRO Division since 2011. She has contributed to the development and execution of the mission of AGRO through service to numerous committees. She has been a member of the Executive Committee, Strategic Programming Committee, Membership Committee, and Communications Committee. In addition, she has served as the Chair of the Membership Committee and was recently elected the 2019 Vice-Chair of the AGRO division.

Leah has also been involved as a co-organizer for numerous symposia and is a topic champion for Advances in Agrochemical Residues, Analytical and Metabolism. Other service to ACS AGRO includes judging for the New Investigator Award, training of new symposia organizers, and organization of the graduate student luncheon at national meetings. In addition to volunteering with ACS AGRO, Leah enjoys supporting local scientific outreach efforts including Missouri’s Science Bowl.

Past Awardees