Shelby Curry joined the Stein Monogastric Nutrition Laboratory in the Fall 2012 semester. She recently sat down to talk about her background, her work with animals, and her plans for the future.

Where did you grow up? Were you always interested in working with animals?

I'm from California. I grew up in Elk Grove, near Sacramento. I did FFA in high school for two years, I was secretary then vice president for our chapter, so I got to travel to the national convention and the California state convention. I also did a SAE project with my small breeding herd of Nigerian dwarf goats. And I showed a pig once for county fair, and I kind of liked them.

I did my undergrad at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and majored in Animal Science. Cal Poly has courses called "enterprises," which are two-unit classes that meet once or twice per week and the rest of the time we do outside work. I did an equine nutrition enterprise for about two years, and got a lot of nutrition experience. I did total collections, proximate analysis, that kind of thing. I liked the nutritional aspect, but didn't really like working with horses.

I started working with pigs during the swine enterprise. Two students were assigned a sow and we got to help her farrow, care for her piglets and then rebreed her. I worked at the swine unit as a student worker for year, and then helped manage the farm for half my senior year.

I worked with some other animals, too. I worked at Swanton Pacific Ranch in Santa Cruz, which had 500 head of stocker calves from Hawaii. I took poultry classes where we processed broilers, but I knew that I enjoyed working with pigs most.

I had a job at the library as a research assistant technician – they called us "LibRATs." I got to teach classes to Gen Ed students on how to do research in the library. I also worked at Victoria's Secret, tutored general chemistry, and gave kayak tours in Morro Bay.

What brought you from California to UIUC?

Sophomore uear of college, I had asked my professor how I could get some more pig experience, because obviously we don't have pigs in CA; we have some show pigs, but not a lot of commercial hog facilities. I asked my professor, Dr. Petty, and he told me to go on the U.S. Pork Center of Excellence web site, and they have a whole list of internships. So I took an internship in Iowa on a 6400-head sow facility. I was pretty much part of the crew, and did everything from shots to processing, breeding, farrowing, all of the general day to day work. And then two summers ago, I worked with JBS United in Sheridan, Indiana doing research with nursery pigs, and then I did it again this last summer. So I've been in the Midwest for the past three summers but have yet to do a winter.

Oh, you're going to love that.

Yeah. [laughs] I'm really worried.

So then how did you come to the Stein lab?

I'd asked people at JBS what they thought of grad programs here, because I was interested in nutrition. They of course recommended Dr. Stein. I came out last summer, met everyone, and then I applied and got accepted.

What specific aspects of nutrition are you planning on studying for your master's?

I don't know what my project will be yet. I am assuming it’s going to be a digestibility trial maybe something with an alternative ingredient, but I’m really not sure. I'm pretty much open to whatever Dr. Stein wants me to do. Hopefully nursery pigs, since that's what I'm used to, but if it's more on the grow-fin side, I'd be OK with that.

What are you planning to do after the completion of your degree?

Well, I definitely want to get my Ph. D. after my Master's. I don’t know exactly what I want to do for my PhD, I’m just trying to get through my Master’s at this point. If I went into academia, that would be fine. I could go back to California if I really didn't like the snow. But I really liked working for JBS, and I would definitely consider going to work for them.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I really like to play golf. I'm sad I didn't get to bring my clubs, but I might have my mom send them to me. We do a lot of watersports, like skiing and boating. I like snowboarding. I also like to read a lot, mostly fiction. But I don't know if I'll have a lot of free time here.