SPEAKERS

Arriola Apelo, PhD (Sebastian)

I have been Assistant Professor of Dairy Cattle Metabolism in the Department of Animal & Dairy Sciences (former Dairy Science) at UW-Madison since 2017. I have a bachelor's degree on animal science and agronomy from University of the Republic in Uruguay, and master and PhD degrees from Virginia Tech. Before my current position, I was an American Diabetes Association Postdoctoral fellow at UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, and postdoctoral researcher on dairy cattle metabolism in Dr Mark Hanigan's group at Virginia Tech.

Luciano Caixeta, PhD

Luciano Caixeta is an Associate Professor of Dairy Production Medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Luciano was born and raised in Brazil where he was involved in beef cattle production from a young age. He obtained his DVM degree from the College of Veterinary Medicine at the Universidade Federal de Goiás in his home town of Goiânia, Brazil. Upon completing his DVM training, he moved to Cornell University where he completed a residency in production medicine and a clinical fellowship at the Cornell University Hospital for Animals. He also obtained his PhD degree in animal sciences from Cornell University. Before joining the U of M in 2017, Luciano was a clinical instructor in Dairy Population Health Management at the Colorado State University for 2 years.

Dr. Caixeta's research program focuses on investigations about metabolic and infectious diseases during the transition period, the development and utilization of immunotherapeutics, and in the use of holistic approaches to understand the networks that form the complex biological systems of living animals (dairy systems biology).

Gail Carpenter, PhD

Gail Carpenter is the state dairy extension specialist for Iowa State University. She holds her degrees from Michigan State University (B.S.), the University of Minnesota (M.S.), and Kansas State University (Ph.D.). Before joining the Iowa State faculty in 2021, Gail was a dairy nutritionist with CSA Animal Nutrition in Dayton, OH and an assistant professor in applied dairy nutrition and management at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus. Gail reads too much and would rather be hiking than in the office, but fortunately, her extension work keeps her busy around Iowa so she is never bored

Luiz Ferraretto, PhD

Dr. Luiz Ferraretto is a Ruminant Nutrition Extension Specialist in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his research interests are applied dairy cattle nutrition and management with emphasis on starch and fiber utilization by dairy cows, forage quality and digestibility, and the development and evaluation of assays for feed and forage analysis.

Rick Grant, PhD

Rick Grant was raised on a dairy farm near Potsdam, New York. He received a B.S. in Animal Science from Cornell University, a Ph.D. from Purdue University in ruminant nutrition, and completed a post-doc in forage research at the US Dairy-Forage Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 1990 to 2003, Rick was a professor and extension dairy specialist at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. From 2003 to 2023, he was president of the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute in Chazy, NY. Rick's research interests include forages, dairy cattle nutrition, and cow behavior. He has received the Pioneer Hi-Bred Forage Research Award, the Nutrition Professionals Applied Dairy Nutrition Award, and the 2023 Distinguished Service Award from the Northeast Agribusiness and Feed Alliance. He currently authors a Feeding and Nutrition column for Hoard's Dairyman magazine and serves as a Trustee of Miner Institute and co-Trustee of the William H. Miner Foundation.

Alexander N. Hristov, PhD

Dr. Alexander N. Hristov is a Distinguished Professor of Dairy Nutrition in the Department of Animal Science at The Pennsylvania State University and is a member of the Feed Composition Committee of the National Animal Nutrition Program. He has a B.S. in Animal Science and a Ph.D. in Animal Nutrition from his native Bulgaria. Hristov started his career as a research scientist at the Institute of Animal Sciences, Kostinbrod, Bulgaria and has worked at the USDA-ARS Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, WI, the Ag Canada Research Center in Lethbridge, AB, was on the faculty at the Department of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Idaho from 1999 to 2008 and is at Penn State since 2008. Hristov's main research interests are in the areas of mitigation of nutrient losses and gaseous emissions from dairy operations and protein and amino acid nutrition of dairy cattle. As Chair (and current co-Chair) of the Network on Feed and Nutrition in Relation to Greenhouse gas Emissions (an activity of the Livestock Research Group within the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases), Hristov led multinational projects aimed at developing region-specific databases for prediction and mitigation of enteric methane and nitrogen emissions from ruminants. He co-authored a 2018 NASEM report on anthropogenic methane emissions in the U.S., led a multi-institutional taskforce to develop a report on climate change effects on livestock in the northeast U.S., and was the lead author on the Agriculture Chapter of the 2nd State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR-2). Hristov is past division editor of the Ruminant Nutrition section, J. Anim. Sci., Associate Editor of the Can. J. Anim. Sci., and J. Dairy Sci. Editorial Board member and is current Associate Editor for the J. Agric. Sci. (Cambridge) and on the editorial board of JDS Communications. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI). Dr. Hristov initiated and led the development of the world's first Dairy MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) with a current enrollment of over 55,000 (www.coursera.org/learn/dairy-production). He has given over 100 invited presentations and published over 220 books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed journal articles with over 18,700 citations and all-time Google Scholar H-index of 75 and i10-index of 183.

João Paulo Martins, PhD

Dr. João Paulo (JP) Martins was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His parents owned a 20-cow dairy farm in the Brazilian dairy state of Minas Gerais. He earned his Veterinary Degree from Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil) in 2005 and spent almost two years as a bovine practitioner in Brazil. In 2007, he came to the US to work as a Research Assistant for Dr. Richard Pursley in the Department of Animal Science at Michigan State University (MSU). He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Animal Science, focused on dairy cattle reproduction physiology and management under the mentorship of Dr. Pursley. After completing his doctorate, Dr. Martins worked as a Dairy Extension Advisor for two years at the University of California Cooperative Extension-Tulare, assisting dairy producers, allied industry personnel, and bovine veterinarians. In August 2018, he joined the Food Animal Production Medicine Team at the School of Veterinary Medicine, UW-Madison, serving as an Assistant Professor in Bovine Reproduction. Dr. Martins is responsible for teaching the fourth-year clinical rotation in Dairy Skills 1, 2, and 3 and bovine reproduction to third-year vet students. His outreach activities include troubleshooting poor reproductive performance of dairy herds and disseminating research-based information for dairy veterinarians and producers in Wisconsin. Dr. Martins' research interests include ovarian follicle development, luteolysis, embryonic and fetal development, pregnancy maintenance, and synchronization of ovulation strategies. His research focuses on improving reproductive and production performance of dairy cattle through the use of practical reproductive management technologies. Dr. Martins has authored or co-authored 30 peer-reviewed scientific journal publications and 40 abstracts presented at national conferences.

Mike VandeHaar, PhD

Mike VandeHaar is a professor of dairy nutrition at Michigan State University. He grew up on a dairy farm near Pella, Iowa, and completed his A.B. in biology at Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA, and his Ph.D. in nutritional physiology at Iowa State University. He just completed his 35th year as professor at Michigan State University, and he has taught nutrition or lactation to 5090 students over that time! For the past 13 years, he has been leading a group of US researchers to develop genomic tools to improve feed efficiency; this work led to the Feed Saved trait that is now part of the Net Merit Index. Other recent projects include new predictions for intake and digestion in cows and growth in heifers, studies on protein efficiency and on the value of nonforage fiber sources and other byproduct feeds in cows, and studies on the value of supplemental omega-3 fatty acids and transition milk in young calves. Mike recently served on the US National Academy committee to reevaluate Nutrient Requirements of Dairy Cattle and is the Vice President (President-elect) for the American Dairy Science Association.