Speakers

Billy Brown

Kansas State University

Billy grew up on his family’s beef and hay operations during their time in Louisiana, Texas, and Kansas. In particular, it was an experience of milking dairy cows at a local dairy during the summer months that piqued his interest in the dairy industry. This lead him to pursue dairy-related activities in youth organizations to continue to fuel his interest. Billy studied animal science with a dairy emphasis at Kansas State University, before completing a Master’s degree in dairy cattle nutrition at Michigan State University. He took a 5-year break from academia to promote Kansas agriculture while working at the Kansas Department of Agriculture. In particular, he worked to expand the state’s burgeoning dairy industry, led beef genetics trade missions to Latin America, and aided general agribusiness in establishing and growing within Kansas. Next, Billy completed a doctoral program in dairy cattle nutrition at KSU, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During all of his training, Billy broadly studied mechanisms of feed intake regulation, feeding behavior, and feed intake prediction modeling in lactating cows, in addition to applied studies in feed and forage quality, calf developmental programming, and dairy cattle nutrition.

Joining the faculty at KSU in 2022, Billy has a 60% teaching, 40% research appointment. He is responsible for teaching introductory dairy and general nutrition courses. His research program focuses on dairy cattle nutritional physiology, with a particular interest in elucidating mechanisms contributing to variation in nutrient utilization and feed intake regulation in lactating dairy cows and development programming in calves. Billy and his wife, Jordan, live in Wamego along with their daughter.

Lindsay Ferlito

Cornell Cooperative Extension

In 2011, Lindsay completed her MS in Animal Science from the University of British Columbia Animal Welfare Program. Her thesis focused on dairy cattle welfare and feeding behavior. For almost 5 years, she worked for the Novus C.O.W.S.® Program conducting on-farm cow comfort assessments, seminars on cow comfort, and providing producers with herd-specific feedback relative to regional benchmarks. Lindsay joined the Cornell Cooperative Extension North Country Regional Ag Team as a Regional Dairy Specialist in 2016. Her passions and areas of focus include cow comfort, lameness, cow behavior, and facility design.

John Goeser

Rock River Laboratory/Cows Agree Consulting

John Goeser grew up with the dairy industry, following in his father’s footsteps as a dairy nutritionist. He has offered dairy nutrition and management expertise for over 10 years, and has been overseeing animal nutrition, technical support and research with Rock River Laboratory since 2012. In 2014, John joined the UW-Madison Animal & Dairy Science department as an adjunct professor, and also began offering consulting services for agricultural businesses. John’s focus is improving the understanding of ruminant nutrition, seed genetics and forage management, and feed hygiene in relation to feed conversion efficiency, sustainability, and agribusiness profitability. John holds several degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, including B.S. degrees in Dairy Science and Agronomy, M.S. degrees in Plant Breeding & Genetics and Dairy Science, and Ph.D. in Dairy Science.

Betsy Hicks

Cornell Cooperative Extension

Betsy completed her MS in Animals Science from the University of Illinois in 2008. Her thesis focused on nutrition, primarily gene expression in response to lipid supplementation in dairy cattle. She worked as a nutritional consultant on Central NY dairy farms for five years before coming to Cornell Cooperative Extension. With the SCNY Dairy & Field Crops Program of CCE as the region’s Dairy Management Specialist, Betsy’s efforts center on nutrition and forage quality, including grazing management, as well as cow comfort and lameness prevention and understanding the trend of beef x dairy in NY.

Jimena Laporta

University of Wisconsin

Jimena Laporta was born and raised in Uruguay, where she received her M.S. in Animal Sciences. In 2011, she moved to the United States and obtained her Ph.D. in Dairy Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014. After five years as a faculty member in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Florida, Dr. Laporta joined the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences at UW-Madison as an Assistant Professor in lactation physiology in 2020. Her research focuses on studying how nutritional and environmental factors affect mammary gland development and function and how early-life experiences impact the offspring's physiology and future potential. To date, she has mentored 15 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, authored or co-authored 75 peer-reviewed articles, and secured funding from internal, federal, and industry sources to support her research in this field.