Jessica Lowell is the most recent student to join the Stein Monogastric Nutrition Laboratory. We caught up with her near the end of her first semester at UIUC to talk about her background, her studies, and her plans for the future.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up, where did you go to school? How did you become interested in animal sciences?

I grew up in Marshall, Michigan, which is a small town about 45 minutes from Kalamazoo. I went to Marshall High School, and at that time, I was looking to go to vet school.  During high school I job-shadowed some large animal vets and some small animal vets.  So, after high school, I was really looking for colleges that would help with vet school prep, so Michigan State was my number one pick. I met with one of the professors up there and he suggested going through the Animal Science Department's pre-vet option, instead of going through the vet school's pathway.  Because of this choice, I got a lot more animal science classes; and that's when I started getting a lot more interested in, just, animal science in general.

I worked at the beef cattle feedlot the summer after my freshman year.  The next summer I had an internship at Binder Park Zoo, and then, started working at the MSU swine farm. Working there, taking on additional responsibilities in a leadership position, and just working with pigs started to influence my area of interest towards the swine industry.  I had the privilege of getting an internship with Hord Livestock in Ohio, a large swine production facility, which furthered my interest in swine production. They had approximately 2500 sows in the barn I worked in. I participated in all the day-to-day operations and care of the animals, no special projects, but if this is the industry I want to work in, I'd better enjoy myself.  And I did; I definitely enjoyed and valued my experience there and the exposure to aspects of a successful operation.

However, during my senior year at MSU, I was still interested in vet school. So, it was really last minute when I decided vet school wasn’t right for me, working with swine had become my primary interest, and that I wasn't really up for four more years of intensive schooling.  So, I talked to Dr. Gretchen Hill, she was my advisor and good friend, and she recommended contacting Dr. Stein.  And that’s what led me to UI so, here I am!

So you didn't grow up on a farm.

No. Both my parents grew up on farms. My dad grew up on more of a dairy farm.  My Grandpa got some cows when my dad was middle school age and farmed for about 10 years but it wasn't really his livelihood. And then my mom grew up on a farm – they had sheep, pigs, ponies, chickens, etc, etc.  When my Mom’s folks retired and moved into town, my uncle took over the farm; and now he's primarily swine and crops. So I actually did spend time on my uncle's farm and helped him when I was younger. I learned about pigs, they’re behaviors, farrowing, weaning, etc.  But no, I didn't grow up on a farm. I wish I had; my sister and I would always ask my Mom if she found a farm on sale…. That's still one thing that I wished I had been able to do, but, you know, I still got the experience and got to have fun without actually having to go do chores every day. I don't know if I could have handled getting up that early every morning! I'm not a morning person.

What are your other hobbies and interests besides animals?

I really love to read. If I'm really into a book, I can read it a day and won't go to sleep until I've finished reading it. But with college and everything, I don't have much time for pleasure reading.

I was in orchestra in high school. I played the violin. Also in college for a little while until my classes demanded more of my time.  At MSU we met 4 hours each week, with additional individual practice on your own. It was great to continue music, but gave it up my senior year.

I just like being outside. Whenever my family goes on trips we usually do some sort of hiking or outdoor something or other. I don't really know the area down here, so I haven't really discovered a whole lot of things to do.  I do miss my dogs, Duncan and Jackson.   I would like to be outside with them.  Duncan is part terrier and likes to hunt and dig.  Jackson is black lab/retriever mix and likes to run!  He’ll chase deer any chance he gets.  I could spend a lot of time outside with him, trying to figure out where he ran off to!

What projects are you working on or getting ready to work on here in the Stein lab?

Well, we're going to do some in vitro work with phytase and phosphorus digestibility, so I've been reading articles on that, just trying to familiarize myself with the process.  I think I’ll be working with John [Mathai] on that project.  That's not my thesis project, just for fun. I think Dr. Stein and I finally decided on what my thesis research is going to be about. I realized at the Midwest meeting that I was really interested in working with sows versus younger pigs; which is a little different because at MSU I was primarily responsible for farrowing, and so all I dealt with were babies.  And I loved it.  The research discussed at Midwest dealing with sows was really interesting. So Dr. Stein actually has twelve sow metabolism crates that he's ordered; and I think they'll arrive this summer. I will do work with the sows, comparing sow metabolizable energy with growing pigs, and do some other comparisons.  I think Dr. Stein would like to look at phosphorus digestibility with them as well. I don't have a developed thesis necessarily, but that's what the focus is going to be.

I don't think that's been studied much here.

I asked Dr. Stein, and he said for one of his thesis projects, he did amino acid digestibility comparisons, but he said, "I have a small folder of articles, and there might be a couple more since then." He said there's not really a lot of research, so it'll be interesting to see what I learn.

And you're taking classes?

Yeah, three classes. I have Meat Science, which I really like – I've always liked animal science classes. You could tell by my grades. I didn't get bad grades, but my best grades were in my animal science classes. And then I have Biochemical Nutrition, which covers vitamins and minerals, and then a statistics class.

And it sounded like your favorite was the meat science class. What do you like best about it?

It's just so interesting. I had a class kind of like that at MSU called Animal Products, where we learned more about each animal, and the wholesale cuts from each animal. Meat Science is more about the biology of meat, and how the animal handling and meat handling factor into processing, meat quality, and what the consumer is looking for.  It's really neat, how there are all these little mechanisms within muscle that are easily affected by so many different factors. It's interesting to learn the actual biology of muscle and what affects that.

What kind of work are you interested in doing after you graduate? Are you thinking about going on to a Ph.D., or are you planning to go into industry?

I'm not really sure about specific jobs at this point. I know some students work for feed companies or large production operations, which I have thought about.  I mentioned Dr. Hill from MSU, I really admired her teaching style, and I used a lab from one of her classes, and actually did that lab for about five years for the Anatomy and Physiology classes at my old high school.  It involved incubating eggs over the 21 day period so there were eggs in each stage of development.  The students could get a visual lesson and actually see and study the growth progression of the embryos.  I really liked that. It was fun for me when students were really interested and learned something, so I've thought about teaching as well, which would require continuing on with a Ph. D.  I don't want to be stuck in a lab all day. I'd like to interact with people and animals and be outside-that would be ideal.

Is there anything else we haven't touched on that you'd like people to know?

I just really love the field of agriculture and animal science.  Even though I always wished I had grown up on a farm, it wasn't until I had related classes at MSU and worked at several farms that I really came to know agriculture and animal science and really developed a passion for it.  I am troubled by the frequent “bashing” of agriculture and the meat industry because of the public’s media-driven perception of handling and processing techniques.  I see comments on Facebook from people who do not understand the process or the reason behind it.  I really just want to help people have a better understanding of agriculture and why we do what we do and how it's actually benefitting the world.