Dr. Gretchen Myers Hill received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Kentucky, Master of Science degree from Purdue University and a doctoral degree from Michigan State University. Following a post-doctoral experience at the University of Michigan’s School of Medicine, she joined the faculty in the School of Public Health’s Nutrition Program. After five years, she joined the faculty in the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at the University of Missouri before returning to Michigan State University in the Animal Science Department.
Dr. Hill and her students are known for their research in trace elements and their interactions at the cellular and animal level including the impact on transporter proteins, etc. Her work with Dr. Don Mahan at Ohio State University investigated the need of the pig for trace elements in practical diets used in the United States.
Hans Blonk, owner and managing director of Blonk Consultants, is a biologist graduated from Leiden University. After his studies he got interested in the Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) method and was one of the developers of the first LCA methodology in the Netherlands. Since then the main focus of his career has been the environmental assessment of agri-food products. Over the years he has made important contributions to the development of LCA and Carbon Footprinting methods for agri-food products. In 1999 he established his own business. Blonk Consultants now consists of seventeen specialists in the impact assessment of food products and is one of the leading companies in this field worldwide.
Kristian Koefoed Brandt (KKB) is an associate professor (since 2007) and leader of the Environmental Microbiology Research Group (since 2016) at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is also a senior lecturer (since 2013) at the Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research in Beijing, China. His expertise is in microbial ecology, environmental microbiology, and microbial ecotoxicology and his research group use state-of-the-art technologies to study microbiomes and their interactions in a range of different environments. The environmental dimension of antibiotic resistance has been a major research area for the last decade with a special emphasis on the role of metals for expansion of the soil bacterial resistome. KKB has also authored several reviews on risks associated with environmental development and transfer of antibiotic resistance.
Lisbeth Shooter is Specialized Senior Manager, Pigs, in SEGES Pig Research Centre with the overall responsibility of coordinating the pig innovation activities. Moreover, Lisbeth is also the team manager of the Feed Efficiency team. Having graduated in 2006 with a MSc in Animal Science from the former Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (now University of Copenhagen), Lisbeth spent 7 years in England working for BPEX (now AHDB Pork) as a Knowledge Transfer Manager working with and advising pig producers. In 2013 Lisbeth returned to Denmark to take up the role as Head of Department for the agricultural consultancy company Patriotisk Selskab, where she continued to work with pig producers as a consultant until moving to SEGES Pig Research Centre in 2015.
Dr Kevin Waldron is a Principal Research Fellow based in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University, UK. His research aims to understand the selectivity and specificity of metalloproteins for metal cofactors, and the molecular mechanisms of biological metal homeostasis. His previous research has made important contributions, including uncovering novel mechanisms of homeostasis, identification of novel homeostatic components, and development of the ‘metal buffering’ model of cellular metal regulation. Current projects in the Waldron lab range from the molecular scale (structure/function and biochemical studies of metalloenzymes), through the cellular scale (determining novel mechanisms of metal homeostasis in bacterial pathogens), to the organismal scale (studying how metal starvation and metal excess are utilised by the immune system to restrict pathogenic infections).
Dr. Roselina Angel received her Ph.D. in Poultry Nutrition from Iowa State University. She worked as a Research Manager at Purina Mills for 9 years after which she joined the University of Maryland, Department of Animal and Avian Sciences. Her current position is Professor of mono gastric nutrition and her appointment is research and extension. She served as Co-editor of the nutrition section of the Journal of Applied Poultry Research from 2009 to 2011 and four 2-year terms as Associate Editor for the Journal of Poultry Science. Dr. Angel was a member of the Poultry Science Association’s Board of Directors from 2001 to 2004. She has been a member of the program committee for the Poultry Science’s Informal Nutrition Conference since1998 and now Co-chairs this conference.
She has been a panel member for USDA’s National Research Initiative competitive grants program and an Ad Hoc reviewer for USDA-NRI, the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, and other funding agencies.
Dr. Angel has published seven book chapters, 160 articles in refereed journals and more that 250 abstracts. Since 2000 she has given more than 300 invited presentations, more than half of which have been presented overseas. In 2002 she was named to the Committee on Animal Nutrition (CAN), at that time the only standing committee of the National Research Council of National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Angel has been the recipient of several awards including the the National Chicken Council, Broiler Research Award and the American Feed Industries Poultry Nutrition Award and the Merrill Scholar Faculty Advisor award. She was named a Fellow of the Poultry Science Association in 2016.
Dr. Angel’s recent focus has also been on improvement in macro and micromineral as well as amino acid digestion through optimizing calcium and overall nutrient digestibility use as well as in optimizing tools to maximize economic nutrient conversion efficiency Her research has had a direct measurable impact on water and air quality and the environmental and economic sustainability of the poultry industry.