Champaign, IL (May 16, 2022) - The American Dairy Science Association® (ADSA), the international organization of educators, scientists, and industry representatives who are committed to advancing the dairy industry, recently elected new leaders for the organization's 2022–2023 term.
Dr. Federico Harte, a professor in the Food Science Department at the Pennsylvania State University, was elected to the office of vice president for a one-year term. Dr. Selvarani (Rani) Govindasamy-Lucey, from the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison, was elected Dairy Foods Division director. Dr. Stephen LeBlanc, 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, was elected Production Division director. Govindasamy-Lucey and LeBlanc will serve three-year terms.
ADSA congratulates Harte, Govindasamy-Lucey, and LeBlanc and thanks all the candidates for their willingness to serve the association. ADSA also thanks the members who made their voices heard by voting in the election.
Federico Harte, ADSA Vice President
Federico Harte is a professor in the Food Science Department at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), with a 75% research and 25% teaching split. He received a BSc in agricultural engineering from the University of Uruguay and a PhD in biological systems engineering from Washington State University. He was a consultant and faculty member at the University of Uruguay and the University of Tennessee – Knoxville before joining PSU in 2014. His teaching focuses on food engineering and dairy processing (undergraduate) and food rheology (graduate).
For the last 10+ years, Harte's research has focused on developing novel functionality from milk proteins for food and pharmaceutical application, and the use of novel processing technologies in the dairy industry, with support from state and federal agencies as well as the dairy industry. The core of Harte's original research is published in the Journal of Dairy Science, where he was editor for the dairy foods section from 2016 to 2021. He has been an active member of the American Dairy Science Association since 2007 and currently serves as a member of the ADSA Foundation Board of Trustees.
Rani Govindasamy-Lucey, ADSA Director — Dairy Foods Division
Selvarani (Rani) Govindasamy-Lucey is a distinguished scientist in the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison. A native of Singapore, she received a BS in biochemistry and a PhD in food technology 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 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 obtained over $3 million 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.
Her research has explored the use of 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. The webinar had over 500 attendees.
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.
Stephen LeBlanc, ADSA Director — Production Division
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. 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 focused on seeing ADSA sustain and continue the progress of its flagship journals and annual meeting and building its position as a leader in bringing together dairy researchers and research users.
Harte, Govindasamy-Lucey, and LeBlanc will join with other ADSA Board members who continue serve their elected terms. More information on the ADSA Board is located here.
ABOUT THE AMERICAN DAIRY SCIENCE ASSOCIATION (ADSA)
The ADSA is an international organization of educators, scientists, and industry representatives who are committed to advancing the dairy industry and keenly aware of the vital role the dairy sciences play in fulfilling the economic, nutritive, and health requirements of the world's population. It provides leadership in scientific and technical support to sustain and grow the global dairy industry through generation, dissemination, and exchange of information and services. Together, ADSA members have discovered new methods and technologies that have revolutionized the dairy industry. www.adsa.org