Up and Coming Leaders: These Pork Leaders Are Making a Big Impact

We're proud of this new series, highlighting the young leaders impacting the future of the pork industry. Click below to meet each one, or email editor Jennifer Shike to nominate others. 

Austin Putz, Iowa State University 

Putz is currently working on a disease resistance study with a group of professors and industry leaders from the main Canadian swine breeding companies, who joined together to create a collaboration between industry and academia called PigGen Canada.

Marjorie Schleper, University of Minnesota 

Schleper is working in the Mycoplasma Research Lab at the College of Veterinary Medicine, most recently on inoculation techniques for gilt acclimation.

Hayden Williams, Kansas State University

Williams is researching iron supplementation in pre- and postweaned pigs, including the effect of in-feed supplementation of iron on nursery pigs. 

Jessica Lowell, University of Illinois

Everything from diet to transportation can affect meat quality. Lowell looks at the correlations between early quality (what the packers see) and aged quality (what the consumers see).