Leadership

Selvarani (Rani) Govindasamy-Lucey is a distinguished scientist in the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison. She is a native from Singapore, named as the Food Capital of the World for its incredible diversity of food. She received a BS in biochemistry (honors; 1989) and a PhD in food technology (1996) from the National University of Singapore. She did part of her PhD studies at Massey University (New Zealand) and worked as a food scientist at the New Zealand Crop and Food Institute and a postdoctoral scientist for three years at the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute. She joined the CDR in 1999 as a scientist and over the past 22 years has been actively involved in a wide range of cheese research topics both for dairy companies as well as graduate student projects. She has successfully obtained over $3M in grants during this time. She was awarded the CALS academic staff award for Excellence in Research (2017) and named a Distinguished Scientist (2020) by UW-Madison.

Govindasamy-Lucey chaired the organizing committee for the International Dairy Federation Cheese Ripening and Technology conference that was held in Madison in 2012 (the first time this prestigious research meeting was held in the United States). She has been an invited examiner of grants and graduate theses for students from Canada, Norway, Germany, and Ireland. Her research areas have included use of membrane filtration to improve cheese yield and productivity, and several of her studies were cited by the Food and Drug Administration in permitting the use of ultrafiltration for standardized cheeses. She has also explored the use of various techniques like new cheesemaking technologies, high pressure processing, and ultra-low temperature storage (but above freezing) on extending cheese shelf-life. These studies have assisted US manufacturers to successfully export cheeses to distant overseas markets. After the pandemic caused the shutdown of most food service markets for cheese, she organized a webinar discussing various alternative options for cheesemakers, COVID-19 Toolkit for Cheesemakers, which had over 500 attendees. She coordinates several cheesemaking short courses for the dairy industry and oversees the research, analytical, and sensory programs within the CDR.

She strongly believes in giving back to the dairy community. She has been a member of ADSA for more than 20 years and has served in various capacities including chair of the Dairy Foods Division Council (2020–2021) and chair of Graduate Student Oral competition (2018), and is currently vice chair of ADSA Overall Program Committee for the annual meeting in 2022 and a member of Nominating Committee (2019–2020, 2020–2021). She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Dairy Science as well as several other dairy foods journals.

Throughout her 22 years at UW-Madison, Govindasamy-Lucey has had the opportunity to practice the Wisconsin Idea, that education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom at the university. The CDR model forges a partnership between university research activities and the US dairy industry. This partnership works by connecting basic and applied research to various issues the cheese and dairy industries face. She was able to bridge the gap between fundamental basic research and its application through writing grant proposals addressing specific issues, troubleshooting assistance through analytical protocols, and disseminating information through short courses and research manuscripts. She is fortunate to be able to play a key role in mentoring the graduate students with their dairy-related projects. Mentoring and training graduate students is vitally important to the dairy industry because there is a shortage of well-trained scientists in the dairy industry today. UW-Madison has had a dairy school since 1890. She is so proud to be part of this tradition.

Dr. Nicole Martin is an Assistant Research Professor and the Associate Director of the Milk Quality Improvement Program (MQIP) in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University. Nicole grew up in the beautiful Southern Tier of New York State where she began a lifelong love of dairy by working on a local dairy farm. She received her BS (’06), MS (’11) and PhD (’18) degrees in Food Science from Cornell University with minors in microbiology and animal science.

Nicole works closely with dairy industry stakeholders including producers and processors to drive the farm to consumer dairy research conducted in the MQIP. Nicole’s research interests take a holistic approach to dairy product quality and safety, with the mindset that providing consumers with high quality dairy products must start at the farm and be a priority throughout processing, distribution, and retail. In particular, Nicole is interested in the transmission of dairy associated spoilage organisms from environmental niches into raw and processed dairy products, strategies to reduce or eliminate this transmission, the implications of spoilage organisms on finished product, and the development of practical, industry relevant methods of detection.

Nicole is an active member of the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) and was awarded the ADSA Foundation Scholar Award in Dairy Foods in 2019. Nicole currently serves as the chair of the ADSA Dairy Foods Division and is a section editor for the Journal of Dairy Science. She is also a member of the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) and the New York State Association of Food Protection (NYSAFP). Nicole is a regular contributor to the Cornell Dairy Foods Extension programs, teaching courses in Fluid Milk Processing for Quality and Safety, The Science of Yogurt and Fermented Dairy Products and Membrane and Evaporation and Drying Technology.

Laura Colby is a principal scientist in dairy foods at Land O’Lakes Inc.’s farmer-owned cooperative, where she has worked since 2016 in dual roles as a technical leader and people leader. She had experience working at Kraft Heinz, Quest International (acquired by Givaudan), Monsanto, and General Mills prior to joining Land O’Lakes. Colby studied food science and chemistry at the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her areas of focus include natural cheese, cheese, dairy flavor generation, cultures and enzymes, enzyme-modified cheeses, novel fermentations, cheese quality improvements, and more. She is passionate about developing technical leaders while delivering business value.

Colby has served ADSA in volunteer roles over the past seven years, including as a member-at-large of the Dairy Foods Division, judge for the Dairy Foods Division Graduate Student Poster Competition, chair and judge for the Dairy Foods Division Graduate Student Oral Presentation Competition, member of the ADSA Dairy Foods Student Engagement Subcommittee, and as an abstract reviewer. Colby is engaged with National Dairy Foods Research Centers and recently served on a strategic planning team for the Midwest Dairy Foods Research Center. She has previously served in numerous leadership roles within the Institute of Food Technologists sections, divisions, and student association, where she influenced and improved programming, governance, student involvement, outreach, marketing, and more, having served on both Chicago and Minnesota Section Institute of Food Technologists boards. Colby has had formal leadership training as well as informal leadership development through practice over more than two decades. She is excited about the future of ADSA and its role in advancing dairy animal agriculture and the dairy foods industry.

Stephen LeBlanc is a professor in the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph and director of Dairy at Guelph – The Centre for Dairy Research and Innovation. He received a BSc(Agr) in Animal Science from McGill University in 1992, and a DVM (in 1997) and DVSc (in 2001) from the University of Guelph. After five years of private dairy veterinary practice, he joined the faculty at the University of Guelph, where he teaches veterinary and agriculture students, provides clinical farm service, and leads a dairy research program.

His research focuses on dairy cow metabolic and reproductive health and management, precision technologies, and antimicrobial stewardship. With graduate students and collaborators, this work has resulted in over 165 peer-reviewed papers. He joined the JDS Club 100 in 2019, with over 100 papers published in our journal. He has given invited talks in 20 countries and received the ADSA Zoetis award for physiology in 2019.

Stephen is active in service to dairy societies. He is a past president of the Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council and recently concluded six years as a section and senior editor for the Journal of Dairy Science. He chaired the ADSA Annual Meeting Reproduction Committee and serves on the Discover Conferences Steering Committee. He has been a member of the organizing committee for two Discover Conferences (21: Reproduction, and 31: Big Data) and co-chaired Discover 39 on Transition Cows in 2020.

He is keen to see ADSA sustain and continue the progress of its flagship journals and annual meeting and to build its position as a leader in bringing together dairy researchers and research users. He is motivated to see ADSA continue to evolve with creativity, dynamism, transparency, openness, and rigor.

Phil Cardoso is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his DVM and MS degrees from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and his PhD from the University of Illinois. Since 2012, Cardoso has established a unique program and online presence that seamlessly blends his teaching, extension, and research efforts. Cardoso’s Dairy Science program places students in applied positions and academia. He and his students have published over 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts (original research and invited reviews) and 3 invited book chapters to date

Cardoso currently teaches an online course on dairy nutrition and diet formulation that has enrolled over 70 students from more than 15 countries. His program is built from questions from dairy producers and focuses on the dairy cow’s diet as a medical prescription for improved performance, health, and fertility. That is achieved by understanding the impact of nutrition on metabolism, reproduction, and health in dairy cows, as well as mechanisms of metabolic adaptation to stressors. Cardoso is active in service to professional societies. He is a past president of the ADSA Midwest section board of directors and was a member and chair of the Journal of Dairy Science Management Committee. He served on the Discover Conferences Steering Committee and co-chaired Discover 39 on Transition Cows in 2020. 

Michelle (Shelly) Rhoads is currently an associate professor in the School of Animal Sciences at Virginia Tech. Her recent research involves investigating aberrations in metabolic and endocrine profiles, with a particular focus on interactions between fertility, insulin, and glucose in heat-stressed dairy cattle. Additional topics of research interest include growth hormones, insulin-like growth factor-1, ghrelin, and the reproductive hormones of cattle. The primary aim of her research is to elucidate factors involved in the regulation of fertility in order to develop management programs that optimize reproductive capacity.

Rhoads was born and raised on her family’s dairy farm in mid-Missouri, where she was active in day-to-day operations and eventually built her own small herd of Holsteins. After receiving a BS in animal science from the University of Missouri, Rhoads went on to earn an MS from Cornell University with W. Ronald Butler, then returned to the University of Missouri for her PhD with Matthew Lucy. Before coming to Virginia Tech, Rhoads was a USDA-funded post-doc and assistant professor at the University of Arizona. She is a frequent invited speaker at local, national, and international meetings, where she shares her research findings with producers, students, peer scientists, industry professionals, government officials, and other stakeholders.

Rhoads has served as a member of the ADSA Physiology and Endocrinology Program Committee (2022–present), a member of the Journal of Dairy Science (JDS) Editorial Board (2017–2022), and an invited Speaker at the ADSA Annual Meeting (2018). She is a frequent contributor of publications to JDS and JDS Communications as a corresponding author and frequently reviews for both journals. In addition to the ADSA activities listed above, Rhoads has served on the Editorial Board for Frontiers in Animal Science (Animal Nutrition section). She is a member of two USDA-NIFA Multistate Research Projects (NE2227 and NC1201). Her experience with NE2227, in particular, has prepared her for the ADSA Board, as she served in multiple capacities (director, secretary, and chair) and hosted and organized two of the annual meetings. She has served on multiple committees for the Society for the Study of Reproduction in addition to multiple committees within her institution at the university, college, and departmental levels. All of these experiences have prepared her for working with peers at multiple institutions to accomplish a common goal and have taught her the importance of timeliness in completing tasks.

I grew up in Quebec, Canada, and earned my BS (1978) and MS (1979) degrees from Laval University in dairy nutrition. After a two-year stint in the feed industry to replenish my bank account, I moved to Columbus, Ohio, became an Ohio State Buckeyes football fan, and received my PhD (1985) for the work I did on stochastic models in dairy nutrition and management. Following a one-year postdoc in New Zealand, I started a 10-year career in the feed industry, working for both large and small corporations. In 1997 I returned to Ohio State and moved through the ranks of assistant, associate, and full professor of dairy management until my retirement in 2016. I wasn’t quite ready to fade away yet, so I moved back to the East Coast, where I currently head the research and development department within Perdue AgriBusiness-Animal Nutrition. For those with an interest in metrics of professional productivity, I have authored or coauthored 112 peer-reviewed articles (most of them published in JDS®), published nearly 400 abstracts, written more than 600 popular press articles, and made 780 presentations in my career.

In short, I have spent about half of my career working in academia and half working in the industry for organizations of very different sizes. This provides me with a very good understanding of the different needs and wants of people working in the industry and those in academia, which includes students and graduate students. Although there is some overlapping communality between these two groups, we must remain aware of their differences in wants and needs if we want to remain a relevant organization. In the end, ADSA® is an association of scientists with a common interest: milk production and its transformation into human edible products.