ADS Department Head Letter

The past few months have been very busy in the Department of Animal and Dairy Science. We have hired several new faculty who will be highlighted. These include Dr. Jorge Hidalgo Moreno who joins our Breeding and Genetics group, Dr. Young Dal Jang who is our new non-ruminant nutritionist, and Dr. Anderson Carvalho Alves who is our new precision agriculture faculty with a specialization in dairy production. In addition, we are in the process of searching for a new meat science Extension and teaching faculty member who will be responsible for developing short courses and Extension programming for Georgia’s growing meat processing industry, as well as serving as the faculty lead for our UGA Meat Judging Team.

In addition to new faculty, we had several faculty members who won prestigious awards. Dr. Jillian Bohlen won the 2023 UGA Russell Undergraduate Teaching Award! Dr. Todd Callaway won the American Society of Animal Science’s American Feed Industry Association Award in Ruminant Nutrition Research. Dr. Steve Stice received the SEC Faculty Achievement Award.

Finally, after four years of work by our undergraduate curriculum development committee, led by Drs. Kylee Duberstein and Robert Dove, our new Animal and Dairy Science major and Animal Biosciences major have been approved and are active this semester. With our Regenerative Biosciences undergraduate major, which was initiated in Fall Semester of 2022 and is led by Dr. Holly Kinder and Dr. Franklin West, our undergraduate curriculum has undergone the first major revision in over 25 years. Our Animal and Dairy Science major allows more flexibility to take coursework in economics, and is geared to those students who want to work in the livestock, food, pharmaceutical, or other industry after graduation.

All UGA students are required to engage in at least one approved experiential learning activity. These activities allow students hands-on opportunities that connect their academics with endeavors beyond the classroom. Our second-level meats, livestock, and horse judging team courses, which correspond with being on these intercollegiate teams, have now been approved to count for UGA’s Experiential Learning requirement. In addition, our study-abroad courses to Italy and Japan, which were developed and are led by Dr. Kari Turner and Dr. John Gonzalez, and our study-abroad course to Uruguay, which is led by Dr. Alex Stelzleni, also count for Experiential Learning credit.

Please watch the video below to see what all you can do and be a part of here at Animal and Dairy Science. I hope that you enjoy our newsletter, and as always, if you have comments or concerns you can reach me at ffluharty@uga.edu.