Careers in Animal Science: Kate Freres

Kate Freres (formerly Kate Baker) was a master's student in the Stein Monogastric Nutrition Lab from 2007 to 2009. She now lives in Gibson City with her husband Corbin and their two-year-old daughter Kennedy.

 

How did you come to be interested in animal sciences?

I've always been an animal lover. So, it was just kind of natural. My mom rescued birds, so I did bird rescue, and I was very involved in other animal events as well. I worked at a vet clinic when I was in high school, and decided that I wanted to go to U of I and get into animal science.

 

How did you end up in Dr. Stein's lab?

I worked for a vet in undergrad for a little while. I wanted to get some different experience, and so I started working for Dr. Stein out at the farms, and a little bit at the lab. I started as an undergrad, and kind of got interested into the research side of things, and really loved it, and wanted to go ahead and pursue my master's.

 

What area was your Master's research in?

Digestibility in different types of soybean meal – conventional, high protein, low oligosaccharide – mostly in pigs and a little bit in poultry.

 

Where are you working now?

I work as a laboratory technician for Solae, which is part of DuPont, up in Gibson City. Most people around there call it "the bean plant." We deal a lot in soybeans, so it was nice that I had a little experience.

 

Are you finding that a lot of the skills and the experience that you got here at the U of I carried over into that job?

Absolutely. Though unfortunately, I don't get to work with animals.

 

What are some of your favorite things about the work you're doing now?

I like the variety. Basically, we split the job of everything we analyze into five different sides. So, one side is moisture/protein/fiber/fat, another side is primarily with lecithin and your soybean oils, another side would be strictly micro. Of course, there's a lot that's entailed in all of those. Another side is physicals, NIR, color screen … just the basic stuff. There are five different technicians and we trade sides, so we get to do a little bit of something different very week, which makes it less redundant. I don't run ash and fiber and fat all the time, over and over.

 

I think that's a nice thing about going through school as well. When you're doing your research projects, you get to do all aspects of it, not just doing the lab work or the farm work. You get to do everything.

 

What kind of products are you working with?

We're analyzing it to make sure that it's within the specifications of the products to go onto the market. So we're checking to make sure that it's clean, it's the right shape/size/color/taste/texture, and that it falls within specific set values that makes the product what it is.

So we work a lot with soy nuggets, which are in products like cereal bars. We also work with soy flour, and soy lecithin. If you pick up a box of processed food, at least one out of ten – I would say maybe one out of five – will have soy lecithin in it. It's kind of neat to be able to see what you do in the real world.

 

Is there anything you'd like to tell people who are thinking about getting into animal sciences, or specifically thinking about coming to the UofI?

I think the U of I has a great program, with just amazing professors. Unfortunately it's getting expensive, but I think the University of Illinois is definitely competitive, and it looks great on a resume. And the classes themselves are really useful – you may not feel like it while you're in the class, but down the line you're like, "I learned that somewhere!"