My initial interest in Animal Science was a result of growing up working on the family farm. I earned 2 degrees in animal science (BS from Colorado State University and MS from University of California, Davis) before earning my PhD in nutrition (University of California, Davis). During my MS I worked to understand the role of age, body condition score, and supplementation in range beef cattle production. For my PhD, I aimed to understand how undernutrition affected estradiol clearance and the hypothalmo-pituitary-gonadal axis in sheep. My post-doctoral research in Roger Cone's laboratory at Oregon Health and Science University and Vanderbilt Univeristy Medical Center was primarilty focused on the role of the melanocortin 3 receptor in regulating energy balance and developing a test to assess metabolic rate in zebrafish. Since joining the University of Arizona in Fall 2011, my lab's research has focused on the health consequences of obesity epidemic and improving the efficiency of animal production.