Diego Rodríguez

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Swine Research Center
3502 South First Street
Champaign, IL 61820

(217) 904-4386

diroca84@illinois.edu

I am from Colombia. I grew up in a city called Medellín. My family used to have a swine farm just 45 minutes away from the city. After a couple of years, we moved out to a city close to the coast. The principal activity of my family was agriculture like cotton, rice, and fruit trees, and as well as a small dairy and beef production.

After many years of living close to animal production and farms, I knew what I wanted to study. Therefore, I decided to study at the National University of Colombia, where I got my bachelor's degree in Animal Science in 2011. Before graduating, I had the big opportunity to join the Stein lab in 2010, where I did an internship for one year. After I graduated in Colombia, I came back to Illinois to continue working in research for six months with Dr. Stein. After that period, I decided to return to my country, where I got a position as a farm manager in a company that produces aromatics for exporting.

In June of 2015, I got the opportunity to join again the Stein monogastric nutrition laboratory to continue improving my knowledge in swine nutrition, for which I am grateful to Dr. Stein. During two years, I supported all kinds of research about swine nutrition.

In June of 2017, I started my Master's degree in animal science at the University of Illinois. The thesis was about the effects of feed technology to improve the nutritional value of feed ingredients fed to pigs. I conducted several experiments to determine the effects of extrusion of feed ingredients on nutrient digestibility, and the effect of using DDGS and the effect of pelleting in growth performance and carcass characteristics in swine.

In May 2019, I got the degree of Master of Science in Animal Sciences, and in July 2019, I started working as a Research Specialist at the University of Illinois under the supervision of Dr. Hans Stein. I am conducting research primarily working with our novel swine calorimeter unit at the Swine Research Center in Urbana-Champaign.

I am so happy to be part of this lab again and so excited to see all the opportunities that I am going to have working with Dr. Stein.