Meet Junjie Han, our latest addition to Farm Journal’s PORK’s Up & Coming Leaders feature. We are showcasing some of the fresh, new voices of the pork industry who combine innovative thought and work ethic with scientific savvy and a passion to make a difference.
Age: 28
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Minzu University of China; master’s degree and pursuing dual PhDs, Michigan State University
Hometown: Yanji City, Jilin Province, China
Q. How did you become interested in pursuing a career in the swine industry?
A. My advisor, Dr. Juan Steibel, is an expert in swine breeding. He has helped me better understand the swine production system. As I have progressed in my research, I have realized that my research interests are well aligned with the swine industry and my skill set could contribute to the swine production system.
Q. How have internships helped you in your career path?
A. In 2016, I was an analysist intern at Xinyun Hecom Technology Corporation Limited in Beijing, China. In that position I was responsible for updating the time-sensitive pork price of provinces in China, data entry, and mobile app maintenance.
Q. What has helped you gain swine industry experience?
A. I have spent considerable time working at the Michigan State University Swine Teaching & Research Center while pursuing PhDs in animal science and computational mathematics, science and engineering. I mainly focused on grow-finish pigs. To observe the agonistic behavior of group-housed pigs, we built an on-site monitoring system with remote access. Our work includes, but is not limited to, installing top-down view depth camera, weekly camera and automatic feeder calibration and on-site computer and wireless internet installation.
Q. Tell us about your current research.
A. In my lab, our goal is to improve global food security/sustainability through enhanced pig’s well-being using state-of-the-art algorithms and technologies. I work on observational studies, but focus on the development of novel computer vision algorithms to automatically identify animals and recognize their activities. This work contributes to precision livestock farming and high-throughput phenotyping, which will eventually improve the efficiency of swine breeding and production. I also work on computational models that can be applied to genomic prediction. The computational models could impact the swine industry by improving prediction/selection accuracy.
Q. What is your generation’s greatest challenge?
A. Research shows our generation is seeing more people move from rural areas to urban areas, which may result in fewer farmers. Regardless of the global population growth, there is an increased demand for pork consumption. To me, the greatest challenge we face is the need to satisfy the increasing demand with fewer laborers in the swine industry.
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