With a BS in Agronomy from the Federal University of Uberlandia – Brazil, Ferdinando Almeida first came to the United States in 2005 to participate as a trainee in the Minnesota Agricultural Student Trainee program through the University of Minnesota working for 18 months with dairy cattle.

In 2007, he came to Illinois where he worked as a visiting scholar in the Stein lab. During that time he conducted many projects, mainly on the area of digestibility. After a year, he was convinced that working with swine is more exciting than with dairy cattle, and therefore, he decided to start his Master's Program. During his Masters, he worked on measuring the standardized total tract digestibility of phosphorus in soybean meal, corn, and corn co-products. In addition, he evaluated the effects of exogenous phytases on the standardized total tract digestibility of phosphorus in these ingredients.

As a Ph.D. student, he conducted several experiments to estimate the degree of heat damage in feed ingredients and its effects on amino acid digestibility and performance of pigs fed diets containing heat-damaged ingredients. Among other things, he demonstrated that the negative effects of using heat-damaged soybean meal in diets fed to pigs can be ameliorated if crystalline amino acids are added to the diet.

Dr. Almeida earned his Ph.D. in 2013, and now works as a Director of Research and Product Development, Ourofino, Brazil.