UNL brings home the gold at WSASAS meeting

UNL brings home the gold at WSASAS meeting

Joslyn BeardJoslyn Beard

At the fall 2018 Western Section-American Society of Animal Science meeting in Bend, Ore., the students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln competed against 12 other institutions located in the western United States along with Canada in presenting their respective areas of research. The Graduate Student Oral Competition requires graduate students to produce a proceedings paper and then present a 12-minute seminar from the submitted paper in their area of research. Students are judged based on the quality of the paper and the ability to convey information to the audience in the allotted time, along with answering audience questions.

Caitlyn CadaretCaitlyn Cadaret

Twelve participants were entered for this year’s oral competition, and of the 12, UNL’s graduate students placed on top bringing home both 1st and 3rd place awards.

Caitlin Cadaret placed 1st overall in the WSASAS Graduate Student Oral Competition with her research titled “Sustained maternal inflammation during the early third trimester yields fetal adaptations that impair subsequent skeletal muscle growth and glucose metabolism in sheep”.

Robert PosontRobert Posont

Robert Posont followed closely behind Cadaret placing 3rd overall with his research titled “Changes in myoblast responsiveness to TNFα and IL-6 and increased expression of autophagy associated pathway components contribute to intrinsic myoblast dysfunction in intrauterine growth-restricted fetal sheep”.

Due to their outstanding performance during the oral competition, UNL was awarded the Institution Award for Distinguished Merit. In addition to the oral competition students had the opportunity to enter into a Three Minute Thesis competition to present their research with an addition of one visual aid. Of the 11 submissions, UNL was once again awarded in the top three with Taylor Barnes earning 2nd place and Joslyn Beard earning 3rd place awards. The 3MT competition involves graduate students filming themselves while giving an informative three-minute presentation for a non-scientific audience.