2016 PSA Awards

Roselina Angel graduated from Iowa State University with a BS degree in animal science in 1984 and completed graduate work in animal nutrition with Jerry Sell at Iowa State University with an MS degree in 1987 and a PhD degree in 1990. During her graduate program, Angel worked in the area of stunting syndrome in turkey poults for her PhD. After leaving Iowa State University, she joined Purina Mills, Inc. in St Louis, Missouri, where she worked in the area of exotic, lab, and companion animal nutrition with primary responsibilities for research and development. During her time at Purina, she established an internally known research program in ratite nutrition. In 1998 Angel joined the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland and quickly established a research program with emphasis on the impact of poultry production on the environment. Her research group has concentrated its research efforts on ways to maximize the ability of broilers to utilize dietary phosphorus, in establishing broiler phosphorus requirements, and exploring actual calcium and phosphorus needs considering processing losses rather than bone ash as the need criteria. Recently, Angel has started to work on other aspects of poultry diet changes to minimize nutrient excretion and emissions to the environment. Angel received the National Chicken Council Broiler Research Award in 2006 and the American Feed Industry Association Poultry Nutrition Research Award in 2007.

Nick Dale is currently professor emeritus at the Poultry Science Department of the University of Georgia. He grew up in a rural area of upstate New York, and obtained a BA in history at Florida Presbyterian College in St. Petersburg. While serving in the Peace Corps in Chile, he developed an interest in international development, specifically in agriculture. After returning to the US, he attended the University of Georgia, obtaining his MS/PhD in poultry nutrition under the supervision of Henry Fuller, and subsequently joining the institution's poultry extension staff. Recognizing that most nutritionists in the commercial poultry sector hold graduate degrees, Dale focused his extension program on complimenting their efforts with a program centered on evaluating feed and feed ingredient quality. He organized courses in feed microscopy and nutrient availability, specializing in the determination of metabolizable energy. Detailed studies were conducted on the nutritional value of feedstuffs as diverse as soybean meal, animal by–products, grains, bakery meal and numerous novel ingredients. Dale's work has been recognized nationally and internationally, being awarded the Phibro Poultry Science Extension Award and the prestigious American Feed Industry Association Nutrition Research Award by the American Feed Industry Association. He was instrumental in the founding of the Journal of Applied Poultry Research, serving as general editor from its founding in 1992 until 2003. From 2004 to 2008 he was president of the US Branch of the World's Poultry Science Association. Throughout his career, Dale has been keenly aware of the role of poultry in converting proteins not generally consumed by humans into highly nutritious meat and eggs. He enjoys continuing to share this enthusiasm with both graduate students and "learning in retirement" groups in Athens, Georgia.

R. Michael Hulet is an associate professor and extension poultry scientist in the Department of Poultry Science at Pennsylvania State University. Hulet is a native of Utah. He received his BS and MS in animal science from Brigham Young University, and his PhD in poultry science from Texas A&M University. He has been a poultry specialist for meat birds for the past 17 years at Penn State. Previously, he was a turkey extension specialist at Virginia Tech for 12 years. His primary focus has been the development of educational and applied research programs, with emphasis on incubation and hatchability as well as poultry production management and environmental issues. Working collaboratively with others in the Department of Poultry Science, he has been instrumental in conducting successful educational programs for hatchery workshops and meetings, regional game bird breeders and shooting preserve conferences, and poultry industry symposiums. He has also developed and supervised a poultry production and management undergraduate course for the past five years and co-advised student poultry tours to the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. Hulet has also helped plan the biannual National Poultry Waste Management Seminar since 1988, and served as the chair in 2004. In the past five years, Hulet has been active in speaking at over 30 professional meetings nationally and internationally. His work has included the applied research areas of incubation management, turkey growth performance, improvement of carcass quality, turkey nipple drinker evaluations, dust and ammonia mitigation by use of vegetative buffers, as well as mass depopulation techniques. Other recent educational publications, such as eight YouTube videos for Thanksgiving distribution and short radio informational spots, were widely received by and informative for the general public. He has authored or co-authored eight peer-reviewed publications and 25 abstracts in the past five years. He has served on a number of Poultry Science Association committees (Extension Affairs, Environment, Nominations, Hyline International Award, 2007 Production, Environment, and Management Section Meeting Chair, and associate editor) and the board of directors and treasurer for PAACO. He served as the secretary/treasurer for PSA for six years and was awarded the Phibro Animal Health Poultry Science Extension Award for 2010.

Joy Mench received her PhD in ethology (animal behavior) from the University of Sussex in England in 1983. She carried out her postdoctoral research at Cornell University in the Department of Poultry and Avian Science, and was then hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1985. In 1995 she moved to the University of California, Davis, where she is currently professor and vice chair in the Department of Animal Science as well as the director of the Center for Animal Welfare. Mench conducts research on the behavior and welfare of animals, focusing on poultry, companion birds, and laboratory and zoo animals. She has published more than 150 articles, book chapters, and edited books on these topics and is also the author of Poultry Behaviour and Welfare, published by CABI Press. Mench has given numerous invited presentations to local, national and international audiences. At UC Davis, she teaches undergraduate courses on animal welfare and the ethics of animal use, as well as a graduate course on ethics and professionalism in animal biology. Mench has served as a scientific advisor on farm animal welfare issues to many different organizations, including the United Egg Producers, the National Chicken Council, Foster Farms, Maple Leaf Farms, Butterball, McDonald's, Safeway, ALDI, Sysco, Certified Humane, American Humane Certified, the Food Marketing Institute, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, the World Animal Health Organization (OIE), the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the National Academy of Sciences, and the European Union. She also served for seven years on the Council on Accreditation for the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Care International (AAALAC), and as the president of the International Society for Applied Ethology. She has been an active member of the PSA as a symposium organizer and member or chair of various committees including the Program Committee, the Alltech Student Research Award Research Manuscript Committee, and the Committee on Animal Care. Mench also represented the PSA on the FASS Animal Care Committee and on the writing committees of three editions of the Guide for the Care and Use of Agricultural Animals in Research and Teaching. She is the recipient of the Poultry Science Association Poultry Welfare Research Award and the UC Davis Distinguished Public Scholarly Service Award.

Tom Porter received his PhD in animal physiology from the University of Minnesota in 1988. He conducted research as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology at the Medical University of South Carolina. In 1993 he joined the Department of Poultry Science at Texas A&M University as an assistant professor, and in 1997 he was recruited to the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland, where he was subsequently promoted to associate professor and professor. He chaired the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland from 2007 to 2015, and has served the Poultry Science Association for more than 20 years as associate editor (1995-2004), section editor (2004-2010), and editor-in-chief (2010-2016) of the journal Poultry Science. Porter's research interests center on molecular and cellular endocrinology in poultry. Early in his career, he demonstrated that the production of steroid hormones in the ovaries of birds requires three different cell types, a situation which is different from that in mammals. One major focus of his research over the past 20 years has been on the mechanisms controlling cellular differentiation within the anterior pituitary gland during chick embryonic development. The overall goal of this research is to improve growth characteristics in broiler chickens through an increased understanding of the regulation of the bird's own growth hormone production. Porter's group has developed a working model for the regulation of growth hormone cell differentiation that involves hormones from other endocrine glands as well as nuclear transcription factors and signal transduction cascades. A second major focus in Porter's laboratory has included genome-wide analysis of gene expression in the neuroendocrine system. The long-term goal of this research is to increase our understanding of global patterns of gene expression in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland and to identify the genes and gene networks controlling growth rate, body composition and feed intake in broiler chickens. Porter is the author of 82 refereed scientific papers, 21 book chapters or reviews, and 131 abstracts. His publications have been cited more than 1,700 times. He and his collaborators have submitted 35,452 nucleotide sequences to GenBank and five cDNA microarray platforms to GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus). Porter's research and teaching accomplishments have been recognized with the Junior Faculty Excellence Award, Alumni Excellence in Instruction Award, and Dean Gordon Cairns Award for Distinguished Creative Work and Teaching in Agriculture from the University of Maryland, and the Research Award and the Embrex Fundamental Science Award from the Poultry Science Association.

Kenneth W. Koelkebeck
University of Illinois  

Kenneth W. Koelkebeck received his BS/MS degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and his PhD from Texas A&M University. In 1986 he joined the faculty in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Hawaii as a poultry extension specialist, and the following year he moved to take the same position in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently a professor and poultry extension specialist in the department and has an academic appointment of 60% extension, 25% research, and 15% teaching. Koelkebeck provides extension program support aimed at delivering educational information in the areas of poultry production, environmental management, waste management, nutrition, and biosecurity to small flock and commercial poultry producers throughout Illinois. He has developed a multi-faceted extension and service program with both breadth and depth that meets the diverse needs of the state, the Midwest, and the US. Some of the major extension programs with which he is involved include coordinating the Multi-State Poultry Feeding and Nutrition Conference, co-coordinating the educational program at the Midwest Poultry Federation Convention, and acting as superintendent of the National 4-H Poultry and Egg Conference. A popular extension and 4-H program that Koelkebeck conducts is a teacher incubation-embryology project: each year he trains about 225 school teachers about how to incubate chicken eggs in the classroom. Koelkebeck's research on nutrition and molting has had a big impact, showing that laying hens could be successfully molted using a non-feed withdrawal method. This led to a United Egg Producers mandate that their producer members must only use a non-feed withdrawal molting technique. In his nutrition work, he demonstrated that laying hens will respond to increasing energy and nutrient-dense diets by increasing egg production and feed efficiency during a production cycle. Koelkebeck has received several awards from the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois. He received an ACES senior award for Excellence in Extension in 2010, and the John Clyde and Henrietta Downey Spitler Teaching Award in 2012. He received the Phibro Extension Award from the Poultry Science Association in 2002. Koelkebeck has served on several committees in the Poultry Science Association and is on the editorial board of Poultry Science and The Journal of Applied Poultry Research (JAPR). He was a section editor of JAPR from 2004-2013. Koelkebeck has authored or co-authored 48 peer-reviewed journal articles, 68 abstracts, 69 conference proceedings, 100 popular press articles, and 80 news releases. He has also presented invited talks at 37 national and 4 international conferences, and has given 44 invited presentations at state and national seminars.

Aaron J. Cowieson
DSM Nutritional Products  

Aaron Cowieson hails originally from Scotland, and earned his PhD at the University of Aberdeen in 2001. From 2001 to 2010 Cowieson worked for two major biotechnology businesses where his research focus was feed enzymes, ingredient quality, and amino acid/mineral nutrition of poultry. From 2010 to 2013 Cowieson was associate professor of poultry nutrition and director of the Poultry Research Foundation within the veterinary science faculty at the University of Sydney, Australia. Cowieson is currently a principal scientist at DSM Nutritional Products, specializing in various aspects of feed enzyme biotechnology and monogastric nutrition, and is retained by the University of Sydney as an adjunct professor of poultry nutrition. Cowieson has published more than 250 scientific articles, including more than 100 in peer-reviewed journals, and currently serves as an associate editor of nutrition for the international journal Animal Production Science.

Richard D. Reynnells
University of Maryland 

Richard Reynnells was raised on a diversified family farm in Lawrence, MI. The major enterprises were table egg layers, tart cherries, asparagus, and corn. He has six children, Kathleen, Michael, Steven, James, Russell, and Samuel. His wife, Louise, works for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Agricultural Library (NAL). After a year at Lake Michigan College, Reynnells joined the Air Force in 1966 as an aircraft mechanic. He was stationed in Texas, Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines and North Dakota. He earned an AS degree at Southwestern Michigan College in 1972, then he and his family went to Michigan State University where he majored in Poultry Science at the suggestion of his brother Bob, and Dr. Theo Coleman. He earned the BS, MS and PhD degrees in Poultry Science, and in 1979 began work in the Extension Poultry Science Department, at the University of Georgia. He was stationed in Statesboro, but had statewide responsibilities. His work was primarily with production aspects of table eggs, broilers, and game birds, but assisted in 4H programs. In 1985, he became the national program leader (NPL) of poultry science and fur-bearing animals at the USDA Extension Service in Washington, DC. In this role, he was a liaison between USDA, the industries, and universities to help define problems in the poultry system. He then provided leadership by creating teams of poultry system personnel to establish national programs and develop mechanisms to deal with specific issues. His areas of responsibility for USDA included animal welfare, environment, food safety, organic poultry, and 4-H. He also worked on assignments such as development of an extension poultry program in Tianjin City, PRC, and a regional environmental center at the National Pingtung University for Science and Technology in Taiwan. After USDA merged the Extension Service and Cooperative State Research Service to create the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), his responsibilities were modified. In CSREES, his responsibilities also included all food animals, and leadership for reviews of Land Grant University departments, and grants. His title was also changed to NPL of animal production systems. CSREES later became the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Reynnells retired on January 1, 2012, and has served the American Poultry Historical Society (APHS) in several capacities, including Secretary, Board of Director member, and on various committees. He currently coordinates efforts between the APHS and the USDA/NAL. He and Louise are life members of the APHS. Since the fall semester of 2014, he has taught in the Department of English Language and Literature, Professional Writing Program (PWP), at the University of Maryland, College Park. He thoroughly enjoys his position on the professional track faculty for the science writing component of the PWP.

Huaijun Zhou
University of California, Davis 

Huaijun Zhou received his BS and MS in animal breeding and genetics from Yangzhou University in China. He earned his PhD in molecular genetics and immunogenetics in 2002 and another MS in bioinformatics and computational biology in 2003 from Iowa State University. In 2006 Zhou joined the faculty in the Department of Poultry Science, Texas A&M University, as an assistant professor. In 2011 he joined the Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis. He is currently an associate professor and chancellor's fellow. Zhou's research program applies genetic, genomic, and bioinformatics technologies to address important biological questions and apply the knowledge to improve global food security, production efficiency, and food safety. His main research program has focused on genetic resistance to pathogens, the molecular and cellular mechanisms of host–pathogen interaction in chickens, and functional annotation of regulatory elements in farm animal species. He has received more than $13 million in funding from US Agency for International Development (USAID), US Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation (NSF) China, and Poultry Breeding Company. Zhou is the program director of USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Genomics to Improve Poultry, under the US Government's Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, and program director of USDA NIFA Animal Systems Biology Analysis and Modeling Center. Zhou has published 78 full-length papers, one book chapter, and 137 abstracts and conference proceedings. He teaches avian biology and animal health/disease. He has completed two PhD and six MS students, supervised five postdocs and 26 visiting scholars, 30 undergraduates, and is academic advisor of 55 undergraduates. Currently, Zhou is supervising five graduate students, two postdocs, six undergraduates, and three visiting scholars. He has served on the USDA and NSF review panels and reviewed research grants for national and international funding agencies. He serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals. He was honored Outstanding Overseas Young Investigator Award, NSF China (2009), Hy-Line International Research Award (2010) and PSA Early Achievement Award for Research (2011).

Lisa R. Bielke
Ohio State University 

After completing her PhD studying poultry microbiology, health, and antibiotic alternatives at the University of Arkansas, Lisa R. Bielke began a post-doctoral research program at a biotechnology company developing technologies for detection of foodborne pathogens and intervention strategies to reduce microbial load on fresh foods. In 2011 Bielke moved to the University of Arkansas where she began a research program as a research assistant professor at the Poultry Health Laboratory in the Department of Poultry Science. In 2015, Bielke began a position at Ohio State University as assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences. The primary focus of her current research is poultry health with emphasis on enteric diseases and ante mortem control of food pathogens, which includes projects developing recombinant vaccine technologies, probiotics selection, and development of tools and assays for assessment of gastrointestinal inflammation with a goal of providing means of producing poultry in a sustainable manner that promotes health and well-being while increasing profitability. Through collaborations and research within her laboratory, Bielke has been co-PI or PI on both industry and academic grants totaling more than $1.2 million. As a result of her research collaborations, advanced recombinant vaccine and adjuvant technologies for control of multiple poultry diseases are currently under license for commercialization. These vaccines promote mucosal immunity for hard-to-treat diseases such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, coccidia, avian influenza, and necrotic enteritis in which mucosal immunity is of primary importance to prevent infection. In combination with adjuvant technologies, these vaccines can be administered orally, making them more accessible and affordable to broiler and turkey production. Additionally, Bielke has played a major role in the development of enteric inflammation models in order to better understand the effects of antibiotic growth promoters, probiotics, and other feed additives on the health and performance of poultry. This emerging area of research is an essential component of flock growth and performance as antibiotic growth promoters are phased out of production and producers seek methods of improving feed efficiencies while improving animal well-being. While helping to manage these two major research projects, Bielke has also remained involved in projects that began during her graduate studies, focusing on selection of functional probiotics to improve health and performance of poultry flocks. These projects have resulted in multiple successful commercial products that are sold to poultry producers world-wide. Bielke served as president of the Southern Conference on Avian Diseases, is presently vice-chair of the Board of Trustees for the Poultry Science Association Foundation, and was awarded the Poultry Science Association Early Achievement Award and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute Early Investigator Award in 2014. During her brief career as a scientist, she has participated in the publication of over 50 journal articles, book chapters, and published proceedings.

Casey M. Owens
University of Arkansas  

Casey M. Owens received her BS in poultry science and her MS/PhD degrees in food science and technology from Texas A&M University in 1994, 1996, and 1999, respectively. In 2000 she joined the faculty of the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Arkansas, where she is currently an associate professor and holds the Novus International Professorship of Poultry Science. She is also an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Food Science. Her research has a strong emphasis on evaluating production and processing factors affecting poultry meat quality including tenderness, water holding capacity, color and sensory attributes. Her recent research has focused on quality of meat from broilers in big bird market programs including muscle myopathies such as white striping and woody breast, and issues with meat texture. Past research has included meat tenderness and methods for assessing meat tenderness with the development of the Meullenet Owens Razor Shear, pale, soft, exudative poultry meat, and the use of marination in poultry meat for improved meat quality. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and popular press articles as well as over 100 research abstracts. She has given over 45 invited presentations nationally and internationally. She is a subject editor for Poultry Science in the Processing and Products section. In addition to her research, Owens teaches courses on egg and meat technology and the value of added-muscle foods at the undergraduate and graduate levels for students in poultry science, food science, and animal science. She also teaches industry workshops related to meat and egg processing and further processing. She serves as an undergraduate academic advisor, and has directed the research of numerous PhD and MS graduate students in addition to undergraduate research.

Peter R. Ferket
North Carolina State University 

Peter R. Ferket is a native of Ontario Canada. He earned a BS in 1991 and a MS in animal and poultry science under the supervision of Ed Moran, Steve Leeson, John Summers and Robert Etches at the University of Guelph. His MS thesis was the effect of body weight control on the reproductive performance of turkey breeders. In 1987, he received a PhD degree in animal nutrition from Iowa State University in 1987 under the supervision of Jerry Sell, Bill Owens, Sue Lamont, and Steve Nissan. His PhD dissertation was about early nutrient restriction on subsequent growth and skeletal health of market turkeys. In 1988, Ferket joined the Department of Poultry Science at North Carolina State University where he is responsible for extension education (25%), research (55%), and undergraduate and graduate teaching (20%) related to nutrition and feed manufacturing. He has devoted much of his extension and research efforts on nutritional factors that affect growth and health of meat poultry, especially turkeys. He is recognized for his work on perinatal nutrition and development, skeletal development and immune function, enteric health, pro-nutrient feed additives, nutritional factors that affect the yield and quality of meat, nutritional value of food industry co-products, and nutrient management. His teaching activities focus on vitamin metabolism, mineral metabolism, poultry nutrition, feed mill management, ingredient quality control, and feed formulation. Ferket is a frequent conference speaker and has authored over 550 publications and eight patents and invention disclosures.

Darrin Karcher
Michigan State University  

Darrin Karcher is the poultry extension specialist at Michigan State University. Karcher has been with Michigan State University for nine years. He earned his BS degree from Ohio State University, his MS from University of Wisconsin, and his PhD at Purdue University. He is responsible for delivering educational programing to youth, small flock, and commercial industry. He has developed a research program that focuses on turkey and laying hen skeletal health, laying hen welfare, and laying hen housing systems. Karcher was responsible for driving the construction of a state-of-the-art laying hen research facility resulting in 12 containment rooms of aviary and enriched colony cage housing systems. As a result, approximately $400,000 in applied research projects have been conducted focusing on hen nutrition, welfare and well-being, egg production, egg quality, and egg safety. Karcher has developed strong collaborative ties with Purdue University, USDA Agricultural Research Service, University of Bern, Switzerland, and University of Guelph. Karcher has overseen four graduate students and has coauthored more than 35 scientific articles, extension publications, and conference proceedings.

Michael J. Toscano
University of Bern  

Michael Toscano is currently the group leader for the Center for Proper Housing: Poultry and Rabbits at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He received his PhD in 2005 with the USDA`s Agricultural Research Service based at Purdue University, followed by his post-doctoral work at the University of Bristol, where he was first exposed to the problem of keel bone damage, a topic which is a primary focus of his research. Since receiving his PhD, he has attracted over $4 million in funding from various organizations including national governments, industry, and NGOs. In addition to projects on keel bone damage, additional ongoing projects include benefits of ranging, design of nestboxes and feeders, and improving aviary depopulation.

Sunday Adetayo Adedokun
University of Kentucky

Tayo Adedokun received his BS degree in animal science from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, MS in non-ruminant nutrition (2002) and PhD in poultry nutrition (2007) from Purdue University. Adedokun did a three-year postdoc at Purdue by continuing his research efforts in amino acid nutrition in poultry. He then became a senior research associate in the Department of Animal Science, Purdue University. He joined the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor in January, 2015 and has been conducting research in the area of poultry and swine nutrition. Adedokun's research is primarily focused on amino acid metabolism in poultry and swine. His research has resulted in the generation of standardized ileal amino acid digestibility values for several feed ingredients for poultry (broilers and laying hens). His research has also demonstrated how several factors influence apparent and standardized ileal amino acid digestibility in broilers and laying hens. He is an ad hoc reviewer for several journals including Poultry Science, The Journal of Animal Science, The Canadian Journal of Animal Science, and Animal. He has published two review articles, 27 peer-reviewed papers, and has given three invited talks. Adedokun's publications have been cited around the world more than 500 times.

Karen Schwean-Lardner
University of Saskatchewan 

Although Karen Schwean-Lardner has been working at the University of Saskatchewan Poultry Research group for many years (as data entry clerk, technician, full-time tech/MSc student, research assistant, poultry unit manager, and finally manager/full-time PhD student), it was not until 2012 that she completed her PhD under the supervision of Hank Classen. Her MSc project at the U of Saskatchewan focused on the development and testing of a very early stage furnished cage, while her PhD project examined the impact of day length on the welfare and productivity traits of commercial broilers. She was hired as an assistant professor of poultry science in the U of Saskatchewan in June 2014. She currently teaches poultry management to students in the both the Department of Animal and Poultry Science and the Western College of Veterinary Management, animal behaviour to animal science and animal bioscience undergraduates, a graduate level class in animal welfare, and many other introductory classes to various student groups. Her research focus is in the relationship between management practices and poultry welfare.

William R. Larson
Iowa State University  

William R. Larson was raised in central Iowa and received his BS degree in outdoor recreation resources from Iowa State University in 1975. While attending Iowa State he worked part time at a chicken hatchery in Roland, Iowa. He eventually became the farm supervisor and hatchery manager. After graduating from Iowa State he continued to work for the hatchery and also a local carpenter. He was hired by the Iowa State University Animal Science Department in 1977 and started working at the Poultry Farm as an animal caretaker. In 1986 he was promoted to the farm superintendent and has held that position for the last 30 years. The Iowa State University Poultry Farm is responsible for both teaching and research activities for the Animal Science Department. Over the last 38 years Larson has personally introduced thousands of students to the proper hands-on management of poultry. He has also contributed to numerous outreach and extension programs. He has been an advisor and assistant superintendent for the Iowa State Fair 4-H Poultry Show for over 30 years, and has helped the Iowa Turkey Federation at the Iowa State Fair. In 1996 Bill was a recipient of the Iowa Governor's Volunteer Service Award for his leadership in reintroducing trumpeter swans to Iowa. His knowledge, insight, and ability to supervise activities with live poultry have been foundational to successful research in poultry nutrition, breeding, and genetics. Last spring Larson received the Professional and Scientific Excellence Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Larson and his wife Carol like to fish, geocache, listen to Cubs and Cyclone games and spend lots of time with their family.

Janet E. Fulton
Hy-Line International  

Janet Fulton received her BS from the Department of Poultry Science at the University of British Columbia in 1979, and her MS from the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon in 1984. She received her PhD in immunobiology with a minor in genetics from Iowa State University, directed by Susan Lamont, in 1989. Her education continued with post-doctoral research at the University of Minnesota working with Walleye fish, and then at the USDA/ARS Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory (ADOL). Fulton joined Hy-Line International in 1996 and established the first in-house molecular genetics laboratory within the primary poultry breeding industry, with the goal of bringing the tools and technologies of molecular genetics into the Hy-Line breeding program. In the last two decades, under Fulton's direction, Hy-Line has defined their genetic stocks at the DNA level, identified unique genetic variation within the stocks, initiated marker-assisted selection, and developed SNP chips for application of genomic selection in elite breeding stocks. These technologies have had a direct impact on the improved performance of commercial egg laying varieties. Fulton's goals have been to understand the genetic variation present in elite stocks, develop rapid and inexpensive methods to define this variation, and subsequently develop practical application of this information. Multiple collaborations with academic and government scientists has resulted in the development of DNA based methods for MHC identification, establishment of standard venous blood gas and chemistry profiles for layer hens, development of a 600K SNP chip for genomic analysis and identification of genes involved with egg-shell quality, various production traits, and disease resistance. Fulton has to her credit over 60 peer-reviewed publications and two book chapters. She has been actively involved with multiple USDA Stakeholders meetings, NPIP, Poultry Breeders Roundtable, ADOL Poultry Industry Coalition and the Poultry Science Foundation, and has provided industry-relevant mentoring to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Luc R. Berghman
Texas A&M University 

Luc Berghman earned his BS/MS degrees in Zoology from the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven (KULeuven), Belgium. He received his PhD summa cum laude in 1988 from the graduate program in animal physiology at the KULeuven, working on monoclonal antibody-based immunochemistry of chicken poultry pituitary hormones under the guidance of Frans Vandesande and Eduard Kuhn. Berghman stayed on in Leuven to complete a six-year postdoctoral program funded by a Belgian National Science Foundation (currently "FWO") grant. In 1994 he was promoted to FWO senior research associate as well as to associate professor of immunology and neuroscience at the KULeuven. In 1998 he moved to Texas A&M University (College Station, TX) in a joint appointment in the Departments of Poultry Science and Veterinary Pathobiology where he received tenure and was promoted to associate professor in 2005. Berghman currently also serves as adjunct associate professor at the University of Arkansas. At Texas A&M University, Berghman introduced an antibody-guided vaccine technology for use in poultry as part of USDA-funded research projects; other antibody-based technology was supported by the Department of Homeland Security. Current research in Berghman's lab focuses on antigen-presenting cells (APCs), especially dendritic cells, which his team recently immuno-magnetically isolated by use of anti-CD205 monoclonal antibodies. In the last five years Berghman has co-invented several bacterial-vectored vaccine technologies using APC targeting motifs on recombinant vectors to direct co-expressed antigenic cargo directly to APCs in chickens. This has resulted in a number of patented technologies which are currently licensed from Texas A&M University or jointly licensed from Texas A&M and the University of Arkansas for commercial development. Berghman has authored or coauthored more than 110 research publications and several book chapters. His primary teaching commitments have included lecture and laboratory courses on experimental immunology (at the graduate level) and poultry genetics (at the undergraduate level). In addition, Berghman has mentored five MS and six PhD students, together with four postdoctoral research associates. To date, each of those PhD students has gone on to assume a research or teaching career in academia or a biotechnological company.

Marisa Erasmus
Purdue University   

Marisa Erasmus received her BS in animal biology from the University of Guelph. During the summers of her undergraduate degree, Erasmus worked at a turkey breeder farm in Ontario where she developed her interests in turkey behavior and well-being. After completing her BS, Erasmus stayed on at the University of Guelph and completed her MS in animal and poultry science under the direction of Tina Widowski. The focus of her MS research was the assessment of humane on-farm euthanasia methods for turkeys. In 2014 Erasmus completed her PhD in animal science under the guidance of Janice Swanson at Michigan State University. Her PhD dissertation research focused on turkeys and understanding the relationships among genetics, temperament, feather pecking, and meat quality. Upon completing her PhD, Erasmus continued working at Michigan State University as a research assistant examining the relationship between brain activity and behavior of turkeys. In 2015, Erasmus joined Purdue University as an assistant professor. Her extension and applied research activities focus on generating science-based methods for objectively assessing animal welfare, and understanding how management and environmental factors influence animal behavior and welfare.