Dale E. Bauman Lecture

The Faculty of the Department of Animal Science at Cornell University created the Dale E. Bauman Lecture in 2017 to recognize and honor the remarkable career accomplishments and outstanding contributions of Professor Emeritus Dale E. Bauman to animal biology, food science and nutritional biochemistry. The initial endowment was funded by gifts of individual faculty members to inaugurate the lecture series, which provides insightful and provocative information for faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students across the Cornell University community. The Bauman Lecture is sponsored by the Department of Animal Science, the Department of Food Science and the Division of Nutritional Sciences.

The Dale E. Bauman Lecture 2025: Shelley McGuire, PhD'94 

 

Play Bauman Lecture 2025, Shelley McGuire
Director of the Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Science and Director of the NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Nutrition and Women’s Health, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID

Science often twists and forks, requiring persistence, humility, and the courage to ask questions that challenge what we think we know. At its core, re-search means looking again and again—observing carefully, re-asking questions from new perspectives, and recognizing that dogma is often wrong. For Shelley McGuire PhD'94 (Human Nutrition with minors in International Nutrition and Physiology), this mindset was born at Cornell. Here she discovered that the simplest questions are often the most transformative and that curiosity, when paired with rigor, can change how we see the world. 

Carrying those lessons forward, McGuire has built a career rooted in collaboration and guided by a strong team-science approach. Together, her team members have asked questions of global significance. For instance, is human milk truly sterile? Does maternal diet alter milk's composition? Can glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, be detected in milk? Could maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection or the COVID-19 vaccine impact milk composition? And should we worry about maternal cannabis use during lactation? 

In this presentation, McGuire shared how chance, teamwork, persistence and her Cornell training shaped discoveries that continue to make science meaningful for women and children everywhere.

a woman holding a plaque stands next to a man
Dale Bauman presents Shelley McGuire with a plaque to commemorate her Bauman Lecture address.

About Dale Bauman

Dale E. Bauman is Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor Emeritus at Cornell University. Raised on a Michigan dairy farm, he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Michigan State University and the University of Illinois. Bauman's research focus has included lactation biology, regulation of metabolism and nutrient partitioning, production of animal-derived functional foods and environmental impact of animal production. 


Named as one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds,” he has coauthored more than 800 scientific articles. He has received awards from several scientific and professional societies as well as the USDA Distinguished Service Award and the Alexander Von Humboldt Award for Agriculture Research. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Bauman has been member of several USDA Advisory Committees and served as President of the American Society for Nutrition and Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture & Natural Resources.

Profile photo of Dale Bauman

Sponsorship

Your generous donations will be invaluable to promote and sustain the Dale E. Bauman Lecture as an annual event at Cornell University. Donations should be forwarded to: The Dale E. Bauman Lecture, Department of Animal Science, Cornell University, 149 Frank Morrison Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853. If you have any questions about the program, please contact Xingen Lei at xl20 [at] cornell.edu or 607-254-4703.

Previous lecture recordings