Six Kansas State University Animal Sciences and Industry Undergraduate students were awarded $1,000 scholarships based on the scientific abstract, poster and presentation of data during this year’s Academic Research Symposium.

The symposium, hosted in Weber Arena on the K-State campus, highlighted ASI undergraduate research for the spring 2019 semester. Winning the scholarships were: Maddi Breault, junior from Valley Center, Kansas; Payton Dahmer, senior from Nevada, Missouri; Meagan Howard, senior from Stilwell, Kansas; Madeline Neufeld, junior from Baldwin City, Kansas; Analicia Swanson, senior from Elmore, Minnesota; and Whitney Whitaker, senior from Atascadero, California.

The Dr. Mark and Kim Young Undergraduate Research Fund in Animal Sciences and Industry sponsored this year’s symposium and the Undergraduate Research Awards distributed during the event.

Undergraduate research is an opportunity to perform in-depth study, gain transferable skills, develop critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, define academic and professional interests, and form relationships with mentors, professors, and other students. The program gives students the opportunity to work with ASI faculty and graduate students on a project that is rewarding and helps them prepare for their next goals.

Undergraduate research helps students understand the value and constraints of data. Whether they go on to graduate school, return to the ranch, or venture into industry, these students will use data every day to make decisions. An undergraduate research experience helps them understand how to value that data during the decision-making process and will help make them more successful animal scientists.

Summary of the students’ projects and mentors:

• Milea Anderson. The effects of nicotinamide riboside injection concentrations on avian myogenesis — Dr. John Gonzalez

• Elizabeth Donaldson. Modifications of membrane phospholipids in response to extended aging in pork loins — Dr. Michael Chao

• Caitlyn Eickleberry. Changes in cecal environment and forage intake of horses fed increasing amounts of starch — Dr. James Lattimer

• Jennifer Jones. Synergistic effect of UV light and sanitizers on the survival of Listeria monocytogenes biofilms — Dr. Valentina Trinetta

• Mylah Knight. Expression of GPR109A in dairy cattle immune cells — Dr. Barry Bradford

• Matthew Konda. The microbiome of the mare and foal at parturition — Dr. Joann Kouba

• Jessica Lesh. Effect of forage type on cecal and fecal fermentation parameters in the horse – Dr. James Lattimer

• Tanner Schmidt. Preferences of Indian meal moth larvae for different dog foods — Dr. Tom Phillips

• Shelby Stair. The necessary components for selecting and completing a successful undergraduate research project — Dr. Cassie Jones

• Analicia Swanson. Increasing duration of feeding high dietary lysine and energy before farrowing on colostrum quality and yield in mixed parity sows — Applied Swine Nutrition Team

• David Velazco. A potential solution to remove color interference in thiobarbituric acid reactive substances analysis — Dr. Michael Chao

• Amelia Welter. A proposed mechanism for texture property of woody breast in broilers — Dr. Michael Chao

• Carly Williams. Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus recognition of peptide sequences in CD163 SRCR5 — Dr. Bob Rowland

In the undergraduate research swine nutrition course, students studied the ability for medium chain fatty acids to replace zinc oxide or feed-based antibiotics in nursery pig diets. Students collected weekly growth performance, fecal samples and scoring, and blood samples for analyses.

This project was sponsored by ADDCON and the Dr. Mark and Kim Young Undergraduate Research Fund in Animal Sciences and Industry.

Researchers included: Madison Bone, Maddi Breault, Cara Comstock, Payton Dahmer, Logan Druecker, Caitlyn Eickleberry, Megan Howard, Aleesha Koetting, Jaymi Lawrence, Grace Luebcke, Ryan Maurer, Madeline Neufeld, Jacob Pettigrew, Sam Reynolds, Lauren Rikand, Elizabeth Scarbrough, Channing Schneider, Caitlynn Stevenson, Hannah Tingler, Tessa Vanderree and Whitney Whitaker.

In the meat goat nutrition undergraduate research class, students studied the ability for corn co-products to replace soybean meal in Boer-type goat diets. Varying levels of corn dried distillers grains with solubles or corn gluten feed were included in diets that otherwise had similar energy and protein concentrations. This project was sponsored by the Kansas Corn Commission.

Researchers were: Rachel Brown, Samantha Costigan, Jordyn Edington, Kaysha Elmenhorst, Lyle Fisher, Kristin Grider, Ashley Griffin, Emily Headrick, Claudia Hissong, Eunji Kim, Em Knobbe, Emma Lehmann, Brianne Lindeman, Megan Northcutt, Taylor Siburt, Hunter Smither, Sophia Tran and Brendan Whipple.

Seven of the undergraduate research students will be presenting their research at regional or national meetings.

Undergraduates interested in learning more about the ASI research program, or those interested in sponsoring the program, can contact Dr. Cassie Jones, Coordinator of Undergraduate Research, at 785-532-5289 or [email protected].

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