Leadership

David Everett is currently the strategy lead for foundational science at AgResearch, New Zealand, an agricultural and food research organization. He most recently was the director of the Dairy Innovation Institute and held the Leprino Foods Endowed Professorship in Dairy Food Science (2015–2018), both positions at California State University, San Luis Obispo. Everett is originally from Australia and completed his PhD in food science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has 34 years of experience in research and teaching at universities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the

United States, and at the CSIRO Division of Food Processing (Dairy Research Laboratories), an Australian federal government research center. His previous commercial research activities were at the dairy industry-funded Australian Food Ingredient Applications Centre in Melbourne as a science liaison manager to bring together publicly funded researchers and the dairy industry to generate new ideas. Everett is a principal investigator and fellow of the Riddet Institute National Centre of Research Excellence in New Zealand, and a fellow of the NZ Institute of Food Science and Technology, where he served as president and chairman of the board for two terms (2013–2015). He currently serves as an Editorial Board member of the International Dairy Journal, the Journal of Texture Studies, and is a section editor of the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Dairy Science. Everett is the immediate past chair of the Dairy Foods Division of the American Dairy Science Association (2019–2020) and has been a member of ADSA® for 27 years. He is currently an elected member of the Science and Program Coordination Committee of the International Dairy Federation.

Everett’s research program focuses on understanding the effect of food product microstructure on enzymatic reactions that produce flavor compounds; release of flavor compounds, nutrients, and bioactive components under in vitro oral and digestive conditions; colloidal and surface physical chemical reactions in dairy products; cheese science and technology; and dairy ingredient functionality. He has published over 150 research papers, conference abstracts, and book chapters.

Everett’s record of chairing a professional society board and initiating constitutional reform while ensuring fiscal responsibility, his industry connections in the United States and New Zealand, and his service to ADSA and other professional associations provides him with expertise and experience to serve on the ADSA board. He has a strong focus on good governance, leadership, and facilitating the free discussion of new ideas and approaches.

Everett currently lives in Palmerston North, New Zealand, with his wife and cat.

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 Hernandez grew up in El Paso, Texas, and always had a keen interest in animal physiology. She was a collegiate swimmer and swam at Iowa State University for three years, then transferred to New Mexico State University. She received her BS and MS degrees in animal science from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She did her PhD at the University of Arizona in nutritional biochemistry. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular physiology at the University of Cincinnati Medical School. She joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011.

Hernandez’s main research focus is on the regulation of mammary gland function and maternal homeostasis during lactation. Specifically, she is interested in the role of serotonin on coordinating calcium dynamics in the mammary gland and how this relates to maternal calcium homoestasis during the early peripartum period.

She is also interested in the other physiological functions serotonin regulates within the mammary gland (i.e., glucose metabolism, fat metabolism, and so on) and how that pertains to maternal physiology during lactation as well as the formation of milk. She has authored 69 peer-reviewed publications, given 66 invited presentations in the United States and several countries, and has two patents for her research. She has trained four PhD students and three MS students. She was the winner of the 2017 American Dairy Science Association® Foundation Scholar in Production award and has been a section editor for the Journal of Dairy Science® in the physiology section since 2019. She also was on the Lactation Biology Section Committee from 2013–2016 for the ADSA Annual Meeting.

Hernandez’s goals as a professor have been to work on novel areas of lactation physiology and to mentor graduate students in this field who go on to work in academia and the dairy industry. Understanding how the mammary gland controls lactation is critical to cow health, and this has been the focus of her research program. She believes that our association should continue to have a vibrant research portfolio that encourages young scientists to join ADSA and also attend the annual meeting. Further, she says that research in the field of dairy science should continue to be cutting edge and provide in-depth understanding of both dairy cow production and dairy food production. She believes it is critical to continue to recognize novel areas of research that are critical to dairy production and dairy foods and to integrate them into the program. She feels this is important for our industry and also for our journal. Hernandez thinks we must continue to support a community that views our journal portfolio as a first choice for publication of the original research in the field of dairy science produced by our membership and others. She says it is also critical that ADSA continues to maintain great relationships with all our industry partners that are supportive of the society and the research that is produced by our members. These priorities are critical for maintenance of a diverse membership and commitment to the dairy industry, according to Hernandez.

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. He is currently the chair of the ADSA Foundation Scholar Awards selection committee.

Paul S. Kindstedt is a professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont. Kindstedt received his BS in dairy technology (1979) and MS in animal science (1981) from the University of Vermont, and his PhD in food science from Cornell University (1986). In 1986 Kindstedt joined the faculty at the University of Vermont and rose through the ranks to full professor in 1995. Over the years Kindstedt has authored or co-authored two books, numerous book chapters and conference proceedings, and over 90 refereed publications, the lion’s share of the latter being archived in the Journal of Dairy Science. Since joining the American Dairy Science Association as a graduate student in 1979, Kindstedt made ADSA his professional home and has never regretted it. Kindstedt has served the association in many capacities over the years, most recently as a member of the ADSA board of directors, member of the Overall Programming Committee, founder and chair of the Dairy Foods Division International Partnership Program, and chair of the board of trustees of the ADSA Foundation. Kindstedt has been blessed as an ADSA member, receiving two awards from the association for his group’s research in 1993 and 2018, as well as an award for teaching in 2008. In 2019, Kindstedt disbanded his research program to focus on professional service and other forms of scholarship as his career enters its final season. After much soul-searching and encouragement from trusted colleagues, Kindstedt placed his name in the nomination ring for ADSA vice president, and so here he stands, uneasy as we all are about COVID-19 and the future of our country and global community. Kindstedt is trying to look beyond COVID-19, for this too shall pass, to a future where ADSA is a nexus of greatness, and goodness, on behalf of our stakeholders and humanity. Please allow him, therefore, to touch on four thoughts about the future of ADSA. First, his deepest desire is to see the Production and Dairy Foods Divisions seamlessly integrated and projecting a winsome vision of farm-to-table science that captivates and energizes today’s students. ADSA began more than a century ago as a vertically integrated commodity-based scientific society. Ironically, the association now finds itself at the cutting edge, culturally, because we are vertically integrated, we are farm-to-table, and we are dedicated to nature at its best—milk. Kindstedt believes that ADSA owns the future if we remain true to what we have always been—dairy, start to finish. Second, Kindstedt believes that scientific societies dedicated to animal agriculture must work together for the good of humanity. The forces now allied against animal agriculture, and the technical challenges that we collectively face in the world of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases of animal origin, and in the realm of climate change mitigation and sustainability, are formidable. ADSA has a long history of substantive and sometimes very complex partnerships with other animal science organizations. Let’s learn from the past and move forward with partnerships that strengthen ADSA and unite the diverse scientific community globally that supports animal agriculture. Third, Kindstedt believes the time is right for ADSA to continue to expand its leadership internationally by forging new partnerships with cutting-edge dairy science organizations beyond North America, including organizations that are serving the vast swath of humanity in the developing world that relies on traditional dairying such as mobile pastoralism. Traditional dairying matters, and ADSA has the potential to unite and mobilize the very diverse global dairy science community under the common goal of serving humanity, including some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. His sense is that this generation of students will admire, and be inspired by, ADSA for taking on causes that are overtly global in scope and altruistic at heart. Fourth, we must work to regain the public’s trust. If ADSA is to serve our stakeholders effectively and change the world for the better, we must be prepared to counter the avalanche of misinformation and shabby rhetoric that is hurled against dairy with thoughtful, balanced, evidence-based arguments that will capture both mind and heart. To do so, Kindstedt believes that we will need the help of social scientists to navigate the torrent of changes that are taking place in our culture. Perhaps the time has come to carve out a dedicated place in ADSA and the Journal of Dairy Science for colleagues in the social sciences whose expertise and interests overlap with ours, so that we can mobilize their skill sets to enhance our effectiveness.