CNS Resources

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Click here for full symposium pdf: Symposium 2012

Plenary Speakers:

• Greg Florant: To Be Fit and Fat: Physiological Consequences Of Obesity In Mammalian Hibernators

  • Gregory Florant received his B.S. from Cornell University in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1978. He has held positions at Swarthmore College, Temple University, and is currently a Full Professor of Biology at Colorado State University. Florant has over 75 peer-reviewed publications and co-edited a book. He has received numerous awards including, AAAS Fellow, two Fulbright Research Scholarships, Ford Foundation Fellowship, CSU Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award, Multi-Ethnic Distinguished Service Award, and recently received a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Georgia State University for January, 2013. His research focuses on how animals utilize nutrients, particularly lipids, to maintain energy balance under various environmental conditions, using hibernators to investigate obesity, fat metabolism, and insulin regulation of energy stores. The physiological processes that enable these animals to survive for nearly 6 months without eating are extraordinary and he hopes to elucidate the physiological and molecular mechanisms that underlie the ability to survive winter without feeding. Greg is also a fisherman and hunter and makes wine; thus, he tries to live the motto “You Are What You Eat!”

• Ian Hume: Kangaroos Are Not Ruminants- But Both Are Successful Herbivores and Wombats Are Not Marsupial Horses- But They Share A Digestive Strategy

  • Ian Hume is an Honorary Life Member of the Comparative Nutrition Society, and was its second President. Ian began his teaching career at the University of California, Davis, and is currently Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Sydney, Australia. In between times he has studied the digestive physiology, metabolism, and nutritional ecology of many groups of mammals and birds, but is best known for his work on Australian marsupials. In 2000 his text “Marsupial Nutrition” (Cambridge University Press) won the Whitley Medal from the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales as Best Textbook, the highest honor for biological writing in Australia. Ian is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Mammal Society. Although most of his research has been done in Australia he has spent sabbaticals in Germany (on rock hyrax, and on long-distance migratory birds), Austria (on alpine marmots), and the US (on native rodents at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Washington). Ian is a co-author of the recent textbook “Integrative Wildlife Nutrition” (Springer) with Perry Barboza and Kathy Parker, and is one of three editors of the Journal of Comparative Physiology B (Biochemical, Systems, and Environmental Physiology).

• Kevin McGraw: A Colorful Commentary On Carotenoid Nutrition In Animals

  • Kevin McGraw is the President's Exemplar Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ, where he started as Assistant Professor in 2004. He also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Life-Sciences Research program (called SOLUR) at ASU, and on the Honors Faculty of Barrett Honor's College at ASU. He is the Editor of 5 journals (PLoS One, Functional Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, The Auk, Condor), and has authored/co-authored 150 journal articles, as well as co-authored a two-volume book series on Bird Coloration in 2006. His current research thrusts are on the effects of rapid human-induced environmental change on animal coloration and its mechanisms, including work on urbanization in Phoenix and the nuclear and tsunami disaster in Japan.

Student Competition Winners:

Malcom Ramsey Travel Award: Elizabeth Hill: Seasonal Changes In Leptin And White Adipose Tissue In American Black Bears

Sue Crissey Travel Award: Yuko Mabuchi: The Effects Of Low Protein Intake On Immune Function Of Domestic Pigeons (Columba Livia Domestica)

Click here for full symposium pdf: 2014 Symposium

Plenary Speakers:

• Guido Bosch: Aspects of Foraging Ecology of Carnivores That Impact Digestive Physiology And Metabolism

  • Dr. Guido Bosch is a researcher in the Department of Animal Sciences of Wageningen University (Wageningen, the Netherlands). He obtained his PhD degree for his work on the influence of nutrition on behavior in dogs after which he had the opportunity to continue working at the Animal Nutrition Group within the department. His main area of expertise is pet nutrition, but he recently also moved into the field of processing technology. His research is mainly focused on understanding the food properties that drive appetite and food intake behavior and on the evaluation of nutritional and (dys)functional characteristics of (novel) foods and ingredients. Examples are unravelling mechanisms of fermentable fibers to prolong satiety, the formation and bioavailability of Maillard reaction products in extruded pet foods, and the evaluation of nutritional properties of insects as novel dietary protein sources. Finally, he has a strong interest in the nutritional history of dogs and cats, which may help to further understand the origin of their physiological and metabolic idiosyncrasies and to improve their foods for health and longevity.

• Kendall D. Clements: The Role of Intestinal Microbiota In The Nutrition of Marine Herbivorous Fishes

  • Professor Kendall Clements is currently based in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand. He received his MSc (Hons) in zoology from the University of Auckland, and his PhD in marine biology from James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia. Kendall began working on marine herbivorous fishes for his MSc. His PhD examined the host distribution, ultrastructure and identity of the hindgut symbionts of tropical surgeonfishes on the Great Barrier Reef. Kendall began to examine the role of microbial symbionts in the digestive process of marine herbivorous fishes during four years as a postdoc in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, Australia. Kendall took up his position at the University of Auckland in 1995. Since then his work has focused on the nutritional ecology of marine herbivorous fishes, with a particular focus on the role of hindgut microbial symbionts in host nutrition. Kendall is also interested in evolution and speciation in reef fishes, especially herbivorous fishes and triplefins.

• Vivek Fellner: Microbial Fermentation: A Dynamic Ecology Shaping Nutritional Energetics

  • Dr. Vivek Fellner currently serves as full professor in the department of animal science at North Carolina State University. He received his PhD in animal science and biochemistry from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He pursued a post-doc at McGill University, Montreal, Canada and then joined a team of scientists at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Ottawa where he worked as a Rumen Biochemist in the area of lipid chemistry. His main area of expertise is ruminant nutrition. Over the years, he has focused primarily on microbial ecology and energetics of microbial fermentation. Much of his research includes improving efficiency of nutrient use by gut microbes to enhance animal performance and minimize waste. He has spent more than 25 years looking at microbial requirements for growth and metabolism. He has used rumen microbes as a model for studying microbial physiology and to compare gut microbial ecology across various species of animals. His work has highlighted microbial transactions in the gut that mitigate production of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and optimize energy capture.

• Geert Janssens: Hippocrates Revisited : Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine

  • Geert Janssens graduated in 1992 as agricultural engineer in Leuven, Belgium. In 1999 he obtained his PhD in veterinary sciences at Ghent University. He became head of the Laboratory of Animal Nutrition at that university in 2001, and started teaching animal nutrition to the veterinary students. At the same time, he initiated a range of research projects, with main focus on the role of intestinal events on metabolic traits, nutritional modulation of energy homeostasis, and micromineral-related physiology. He appreciates the added value of comparative nutrition, involving species from throughout the animal kingdom within both wild and domesticated animals. He is president of the European Society of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition, further involved in the organization of several international congresses, and an editor of Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition. He encourages his PhD students to actively participate in conferences because he is convinced that communication is an important part of doing science. Finally, he does not want to be taken serious all the time.

• Chibuike Udenigwe: Dietary Peptides and Metabolic Syndrome

  • Dr. Chibuike Udenigwe is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture at Dalhousie University. He obtained a B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Nigeria, and M.Sc. in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Food and Nutritional Sciences both from the University of Manitoba, Canada. He then proceeded to the University of Guelph, Canada where he completed a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship. His current research program at Dalhousie University is focused on the processing of agri-food resources into products with enhanced nutritional and health functionalities for promoting human and animal health. His group is also working on understanding the structure and functions of food protein-derived bioactive peptides, and is currently investigating the prospects of peptides in controlling cardiovascular disease risk factors and related processes including hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, oxidative stress and inflammatory reactions. Chibuike is also interested in using his research as a platform to enhance the nutritional status and health of residents of developing countries in order to promote food and nutrition security. Dr. Udenigwe has been recognized with a 2012 Young Scientist Award of the International Union of Food Science and Technology

  Student Competition Winners:

  Sue Crissey Travel Award: Kathleen Sullivan: Preliminary Effects of a Novel Iron Chelator in Black Rhinos

Click here for full symposium pdf: 2016 Symposium

Plenary Speakers:

• Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello: Microbiota Function In Vertebrate Animals And Humans

  • Dr. Dominguez-Bello is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the New York University Medical Center. Her research has focused in recent years on the microbiota function in vertebrate animals and humans, microbiota development and impact of modern practices, integrating data from microbiology, genomics/metagenomics, ecology, physiology, anthropology, architecture, environmental engineering and biostatistics to address broad questions on host-microbial interactions in different environments. The focus is on how these interactions drive microbial evolution, diversity and symbiosis. The group studies the bacterial microbiota in vertebrates, including birds and mammals, as well as human, next-gen sequencing of the human microbiome in peoples with different levels of integration to Western lifestyles, in the Amazon region and southern Africa with a strong team of collaborators.

• Murray Humphries: Diet, Energetics, And Ecology Of Boreal Mammals in Time and Space

  • Murray Humphries is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the academic director of McGill’s Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment and a former NSERC Northern Research Chair in wildlife biology and traditional food security in Canada’s changing North. Murray completed a BSc in Zoology at University of Manitoba in 1993, a MSc in Biological Sciences at University of Alberta in 1996, a PhD in Biology at McGill University in 2001, and a NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at University of Aberdeen, Scotland in 2002. Murray’s research focuses on mammal energetics and physiological ecology, as well as the impacts of environmental change on northern wildlife and people. Most of his research is conducted in the field in the far north of Canada, on mammalian herbivores and carnivores, both small and large.

Student Competition Winners:

Malcom Ramsey Memorial Scholarship: Andrea Brenes-Soto: Temporal Variation In Body Condition, Blood Parameters And Coloration Of Free–Ranging Costa Rican Frogs Agalychnis callidryas And A. annae And Their Role As Indicators Of Nutritional Status

Sue Crissey Memorial Scholarship: Erin McKenney: Microbial Master Plan: Bamboo Specialists’ Feeding Strategy May Depend On Gut Microbes

Duane Ullrey Memorial Scholarship: Morag Dick: Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Influence Flight Muscle Metabolism But Not Endurance Flight Performance In A Migratory Songbird

Click here for full symposium pdf: 2018 Symposium

Plenary Speakers:

• Julie Lesnik: The Evolution and Culture of Insects as Food

  • Dr. Julie Lesnik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Wayne State University. Her research focuses on the cultural and nutritional significance of insects in the human diet over the course of our evolution. This work incorporates studies of nutrition and feeding ecology for modern foraging societies as well as nonhuman primates. She received her B.S. in Anthropology from Northern Illinois University in 2003 and her M.S. in Kinesiology and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2011. Her book Edible Insects and Human Evolution is available this summer from the University Press of Florida.

• Kate Shoveller: Formulating Food and Framing Nutrition Programs to Maximize Health and Well-Being

  • Dr. Kate Shoveller is an Assistant Professor in the department of Animal Biosciences at the University of Guelph. There she is a member of the Campbell Center for the Study Animal Welfare and the Center of Nutritional Modeling. In these roles, Shoveller predominantly focuses on protein and energy requirements and metabolism in dogs, cats, pigs, and horses, but frequently considers behavioral and welfare outcomes as significant variables and outcomes in her studies. She received her BSc, Honors in Animal Biology from the University of Guelph in 1997 and her PhD in Nutrition and Metabolism from the University of Alberta in 2004. Shoveller has published more than 60 articles and book chapters on aspects of animal nutrition and behavior and serves as a scientific advisor on pet food innovation to numerous ingredient and pet food companies, both established and emerging.

  Student Competition Winners:

  Sue Crissey Travel Award:

• Tarra Freel: Free-Ranging Cane Toad (Rhinella marina) Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and Carotenoid Concentrations as Transitioned to the NC Amphibian Diet

• Ben Martin: Safety and Efficacy of Willow Lean and Bark as Dietary Forage in the Domestic Rabbit

Duane Ulrey Memorial Scholarship:

Andrea Brenes-Soto: Comprehending Frog Nutrient Metabolism: The Interaction Between Macronutrients and Food Intake in Xenopus laevis

Click here for full symposium pdf: 2022 Symposium

Plenary Speakers:

• Marcus Clauss: The Comparative Nutrition and Digestive Physiology- Thoughts About Future Possibilities

  • Marcus Clauss, is a veterinarian by education

    and has worked all this life in animal research -

    starting from nutrition and digestive anatomy and

    physiology, and expanding into evolutionary

    biology, life history, and animal husbandry, and

    erratically also into the philosophy and integrity

    of science. For the last 16 years, he was at the

    University of Zurich (Switzerland) as ‘head of

    research’ at the Clinic for Zoo Animals, Exotic

    Pets and Wildlife, and has (co)supervised a large

    number of students. On the one hand, he is keen

    on (re)using literature data, and on the other

    hand, he drove experimental work - both to test

    prevailing theories, and to slowly develop new

    concepts based on the resulting discrepancies.

• Denise Dearing: Eating and Not Dying: Strategies For Dealing With Dietary Toxins

  • Dr. M. Denise Dearing, is a nutritional ecologist who along

    with the members of her research team, seek to understand the

    strategies and mechanisms used by mammalian herbivores to

    circumvent, metabolize, and even co-opt the plant toxins

    naturally occurring in their diets. Her research program

    integrates molecular, genomic, and analytical tools to address

    physiological, ecological and evolutionary questions. She

    began her academic journey by sampling a variety of offerings

    at community colleges in central Connecticut, before

    completing a B.S. at Eastern Connecticut State University,

    M.S. at the University of Vermont and Ph.D. at the University

    of Utah. Professor Dearing conducted postdoctoral training in

    Australia as a Fulbright Scholar, and later at the University of

    Wisconsin. She joined the faculty at the University of Utah in

    1998 and is currently a Distinguished Professor in the School

    of Biological Sciences. Professor Dearing’s research has been

    funded by several agencies including the National Science

    Foundation, Fulbright Foundation and Humboldt Foundation.

• Scott Echols: Navigating the Dietary Supplement Industry

  • Dr. M. Scott Echols is a board certified avian veterinary

    specialist. After completing a bird medicine and surgery

    residency at the Medical Center for Birds in Oakley,

    California, Scott became the Director of Avian Medical

    and Surgical Services at Westgate Pet and Bird Hospital.

    Now Dr. Echols lives with his family in Utah and works

    worldwide. He most frequently works locally at Parrish

    Creek Veterinary Clinic. He strongly believes that by

    better understanding anatomy as a foundational science,

    animal care can be improved worldwide.

• Shawn Wilder: Carnivore Nutrition: An Anthropocentric Perspective

  • Dr. Shawn Wilder is an Associate Professor in the

    Department of Integrative Biology at Oklahoma State

    University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from

    Miami University in Ohio, followed by postdoctoral

    positions at Texas A&M University and the University

    of Sydney. In these positions, he has been fortunate to

    work with a range of engaging and productive

    colleagues, including many talented students. While

    most of his research has been on spiders, other studies

    have included praying mantids, flies, fire ants, and

    marsupial carnivores. These studies are united by a

    focus on nutrition that extends from studies of

    foraging behavior and nutrient intake, to life history

    traits of individuals, and the consequences of nutrition

    for food webs and ecosystems.

    A major focus of the Wilder lab’s current research has

    been understanding how nutrients flow through

    arthropod food webs. Feeding experiments with

    spiders combined with nutritional assays have

    identified which components of prey are digestible

    versus indigestible and how these components vary among prey taxa. This work is being used to

    try to better unite the different currencies that have been used to study trophic transfers of nutrients,

    including elements and macronutrients. Feeding studies have also been expanded to examine

    excreta production by spiders and its consequences for soil and plant dynamics. Other recent work

    has been examining soil-plant-herbivore interactions to understand how variation in nutrient

    supply can affect the chemical form of nutrients and their transfer across trophic levels. The long-

    term goal of this research program is to gain a more mechanistic understanding of how nutrition

    helps to structure food webs and ecosystems.

Student Competition Winners:

Malcom Ramsey Memorial Scholarship:

Ekaterina Lopez-Bondarchuk: Response Of Fecal Microbiota To Sugar Reduction In Captive Small Primates

Susan Crissey Memorial Scholarship:

Keith Ou: Multiple Dietary Supplementations in Laying Hens Enrich DHA, 25-OH D3, and Astaxanthin Jointly in Egg Yolks for Human Consumption Benefits

Duane Ulrey Memorial Scholarship:

Mengmeng Sun: The Role Of Digestible Glutamine And Glutamate In Carnivore Nutrition

Click here for full symposium pdf: 2024 Symposium

Plenary Speakers:

• Elizabeth Johnson: Feeding babies and their microbes

  • As assistant professor of Molecular Nutrition and Howard Hughes

    Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski Scholar at Cornell

    University, Elizabeth’s research program seeks to understand how

    lipids mediate diet-microbiome-host interactions with the goal of

    manipulating these interactions for the benefit of host health. She

    studied biology at Spelman College then received an NSF graduate

    research fellowship to pursue a PhD investigating cell cycle

    transcriptomics at Princeton University. For her postdoctoral

    training in the lab of Dr. Ruth Ley, she studied lipid-dependent

    host-microbe interactions before joining the faculty at Cornell

    University: Division of Nutritional Sciences. Elizabeth is a CIFAR

    Azrieli Global Scholar in the Humans & the Microbiome program

    and a Pew Biomedical Scholar. She enjoys pondering the

    importance of early-life host-microbe interactions and finds much

    inspiration in her three small gut-microbiome-sample-generators.

• Nichole Price: Coast-Cow-Consumer: Algae Nutrition and Application in Livestock Diets

  • Nichole is a benthic marine ecologist with interest in how global

    change phenomena - like ocean acidification and warming - can

    alter bottom-dwelling species interactions, community dynamics,

    and ecosystem function in shallow coastal regimes. She also applies her expertise to explore mitigation strategies for coastal

    acidification and climate change (e.g., blue carbon and uses of

    farmed seaweeds). She serves on the Maine Climate Council and

    Seaweed Fisheries Advisory Council, and leads several USDA

    supported research projects. She is based at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine.

• Lisa Shipley: Plants to Populations: Predicting Diet Quality and Nutrient Intake of Deer from Forage Metrics

  • Lisa is a professor of Wildlife Ecology and Associate Director of

    Graduate Studies in the School of the Environment at Washington

    State University. She has a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from Colorado

    State University, an M.S. in Wildlife Management from University

    of Maine, and a Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from Texas

    A&M University. Her research focuses on foraging behavior and

    nutrition of wildlife, adaptations for herbivory, and wildlife habitat

    selection and requirements. She has authored over 100 journal

    articles and book chapters, and supervised 44 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and over 100 undergraduate independent projects. She established captive research and breeding facilities for deer and endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits at WSU.

Student Competition Winners:

Malcom Ramsey Memorial Scholarship:

Renije Yao: Bridge the Diet Preference of Feral Piglets’ (Sus scrofa) with the Optimization of Creep Feed for Farm-Raised Piglets

Susan Crissey Memorial Scholarship:

Morgan Kienzle: Dietary Management of Black-Footed Cats (Felis nigripes) with Amyloidosis or Chronic Kidney Disease: Renal Meat or Whole Prey?

Duane Ulrey Memorial Scholarship:

Mengmeng Sun: Fecal Microbiota and Fecal Particle Size Analysis in Zoo Lions Fed Meat Versus Large Carcass

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Travel Support:

Keith Ou: Metabolic Impacts of Supplementing 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 from a Synthetic Source or Enriched Egg Yolks in Mice Consuming Control or High-Fat Diets

Join us at the Inn at Laurel Point in Victoria, BC, Canada July 26th-30th, 2026 for the sixteenth Comparative Nutrition Society Conference.

Click for details on the upcoming conference: CNS Victoria, BC, Canada