Diego Navarro grew up in Los Baños, a small university town south of Manila, Philippines. He was exposed to the animal industry at a very young age; his family runs a feed company that manufactures and distributes animal health and nutritional products in the Philippines. He pursued a BS in Agriculture at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños, and majored in Animal Sciences with a specialization in Swine Production. His undergraduate research focused on the effects of porcine peptones on the production performance of weanling pigs. He moved to Illinois in August 2012 to pursue his MS with Dr. Hans Stein. His MS work determined the amino acid digestibility and concentration of energy in processed soybean and rapeseed products fed to pigs. He earned his MS in May 2014. In May 2018, he earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation entitled “The correlation between the physicochemical characteristics and the energetic value of dietary fiber in feed ingredients used in swine diets.” Upon graduation, he joined the Research and Innovation group of United Animal Health and was involved in nursery, grow-finish, and novel products research efforts. He also served as a technical service liaison for the international sales team to support enzyme and microbial solutions in swine and poultry.
Diego currently serves as the Swine Nutritionist for North and Central America at Hamlet Protein. He is also currently pursuing an MBA and an MS in Marketing from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.