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The outstanding graduate student award winners in the Department of Animal Science for this year were announced on April 27, 2006 at the department's annual Spring Awards Presentation. The award winners are as follows:
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Barry grew up on seedstock beef farm in western Iowa and was heavily involved in the operation from an early age. During his undergraduate work at Iowa State University, he worked in the Nutritional Physiology Lab for 4 years, studying a variety of topics in ruminant nutrition. Following graduation in 2002, he began his graduate program at MSU under the direction of Dr. Mike Allen.
Barry's PhD research has focused on the regulation of feed intake in lactating dairy cows, investigating the mechanisms connecting nutrient supply and demand. During his time at MSU, he has authored or co-authored 5 peer-reviewed publications, 2 popular press articles, and 8 scientific abstracts. In addition, he has been a teaching assistant for 4 undergraduate courses and has served on a number of college and departmental committees. Barry plans to complete his doctoral program this summer, and hopes to become a faculty member at a land-grant institution.
David Edwards grew up in central Iowa and was involved in 4-H lamb and swine projects. He received his B.S. degree from Iowa State University in 1998. While at ISU, he performed research in swine nutrition and immunology interactions as well as genetic selection index theory. Upon graduation with distinction, he received the Outstanding Senior in the College of Agriculture award. David received his M.S. in 2001 and Ph.D. in 2005 from Michigan State University with Dr. Ronald Bates, and his M.S. research involved a genetic evaluation of two terminal sire breeds in pigs while his Ph.D. research was discovery of QTL affecting growth, composition, and meat quality traits in a Duroc by Pietrain F2 pig resource population. Between graduate degrees, he developed genetic and economic modeling software during an internship at PIC-USA. David was involved with the leadership of the Animal Science Graduate Student Association at MSU and was elected as a graduate director on the American Society of Animal Science board. Currently he is researching energy metabolism in beef cattle through the use of proteomics and indirect calorimetry at the University of Kentucky.
Nora M. Bello is a graduate student in the Department of Animal Science at Michigan State University. Nora is originally from Argentina, where she graduated in Veterinary Medicine from Universidad Catolica de Cordoba. In 2004, Nora came to the U.S. to work in a graduate program in dairy reproductive physiology and management under the supervision of Dr. Richard Pursley. Since then, both her personal and academic experiences in Michigan have been challenging, but highly motivating and rewarding. As she finishes her MS program, Nora looks forward to pursuing a PhD in reproductive physiology. She is interested in developing ways to improve reproductive performance in dairy cattle by merging basic and applied research, and transferring its results to dairy producers by active outreach and extension.
Lan (Shirley) Xiao is a PhD. candidate majoring in Statistical Genomics under Dr. Robert J. Tempelman's supervision in the Department of Animal Science. She came to MSU for her PhD degree in 2002. Lan received her Masters degree from the Department of Statistics at the University of Toronto in 2002. Her dissertation research focuses on the benefits of hierarchical modeling strategies for the analysis of microarray data generated using efficient experimental designs. Her work was recently featured in an oral presentation provided at the 2006 spring meetings of the East North American Region of the International Biometrics Society in Tampa, FL.
Lan has been a Teaching Assistant for several courses intended primarily for graduate students: STT 464 (Statistics for Biologists I), STT 465 (Statistics for Biologists II) and STT 801 (Design of Experiments) at MSU. Since 2003, she also has been working as a statistical consultant for the CANR Statistical Consulting Center and most recently for CSTAT on the MSU campus. Lan has collaborated extensively with researchers from various disciplines, and has co-authored peer-reviewed papers appearing in the Journal of Environment Quality, Hortscience and Physiological Genomics.
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