Nelson Camillo Ruiz Arias was born and raised in Cúcuta, a small city north of Santander, Colombia. He received a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences from the National University of Colombia (UNAL), Bogota in 2015. He became a research student in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, the largest research facility related to animal science in Colombia. While studying at UNAL he also worked as a research assistant in insect research on the Facultad Medicina Veterinaría Z - Centro de Investigacion Estructura laboratorios_CINAT (unal.edu.co). In addition to his passion for insects, Nelson found a passion for research. This passion developed during an internship he did in an Animal Nutrition company Enthos where they used insects as feed ingredients in diets for laying hens, pigs, and fish. With this experience, he began developing more diets based on alternative ingredients such as insects.

On a visit to the United States, Camilo met Dr. Hans H. Stein at the University of Illinois (UIUC) and Dr. Stein offered him to become a visiting scholar in the Monogastric Nutrition Laboratory. He agreed to this suggestion, and he very much appreciates the opportunity to work with and learn and conducting nutritional experiments with pigs in Dr. Stein’s team.

In 2023, he started his master's degree under Dr. Stein guidance. His graduate research includes nutritional value of full-fat soybeans fed to pigs by conducting three experiments testing the hypothesis that concentration and digestibility of nutrients (i.e., crude protein, amino acids, and phosphorus) and energy (i.e., digestible and metabolizable energy) are not different in five sources of full-fat soybeans collected from different region in United States when fed to growing pigs.

He is very pleased to have the opportunity to work with a distinguished researcher. After his graduation in December 2024, he will contribute to the development of the Swine Industry around the world.