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Students Awarded Travel Scholarships
The National Mastitis Research Foundation Board of Directors selected four graduate students – Rick Watters, Jennifer McCarron, Patrícia Yoshida Faccioli and Wilma Steeneveld – as winners in the NMC Scholars Program.
The program’s purpose is to provide funding for graduate students to attend the NMC 48th Annual Meeting, January 25-28, 2008, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and encourage their involvement in NMC programs and activities. Funding for the NMC Scholars Program comes from the National Mastitis Research Foundation, which is financed through contributions from NMC members and supporters.
Watters is pursuing a doctorate degree at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research focuses on the pre-milking routine and how efficiencies in milking can be achieved by manipulating this process. Watters hopes to develop the “gold standard” pre-milking routine for today’s high-producing dairy herds.
McCarron, an Atlantic Veterinary College master’s degree student, also earned her doctor of veterinary degree from Atlantic Veterinary College, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree from Nova Scotia Agricultural College. With genuine interest from producers and veterinarians, her research project’s goal is to reduce antibiotic use in Canada for treating mastitis by allowing producers to make treatment decisions based on culture results.
Steeneveld is pursuing her doctorate degree from Utrecht University, in The Netherlands. Previously, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Wageningen University. Steeneveld’s current research uses on-farm data and decision support models to improve udder health on farms with automatic milking systems. This research will contribute to developing detection models to control mastitis on dairy farms with these systems.
Faccioli, São Paulo, Brazil, a Universidade Estadual Paulista master’s degree student in veterinary medicine, is conducting research on molecular detection of Staphylococcus aureus in bulk milk tanks of bovine herds, under refrigerated and room temperature conditions. Her research objective includes evaluating the sensitivity of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) assay and comparing with microbiological techniques to detect Staph. aureus in bulk milk.
Information regarding next year's NMC Scholars Program, which will provide travel funding for graduate students to attend the 2010 NMC Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will be available in June 2009.
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