Max Rothschild
Max Rothschild MaxMax Rothschild is a CF Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Science and holds the ME Ensminger Chair in International Animal Agriculture. Rothschild received his B.S. in animal science at the University of California, Davis in 1974 and his M.S. at the University of Wisconsin in animal science in 1975. In 1978 he obtained his Ph.D. in animal breeding from Cornell University. From 1978 to 1980 he was an assistant professor at the University of Maryland where taught animal breeding and did research into genetics of dairy cattle. In 1980 he joined the Department of Animal Science at the Iowa State University. Since 1993 Rothschild has served as the USDA Pig Genome Mapping Coordinator. In 2007 he was named director of the Center for Integrated Animal Genomics. Rothschild has devoted his research and teaching career to the field of animal breeding and molecular genetics. Recent research has been directed towards identifying genes controlling traits of economic importance in the pig. He and his lab have discovered a large number of individual genes associated with traits of importance and many of these are used in selection in the commercial pig industry to improve pig performance. He is widely recognized as a world leader in the field of pig genetics. He is a member of many national and international societies. He has presented numerous invited papers in nearly 50 countries and has over 330 referred publications, 500 other publications and 12 patents. His awards include AAAS fellow, USDA Group Honor Award, ASAS award in Animal Breeding and Genetics and the ASAS International Service award, two R&D100 awards and was named Iowa Inventor of the year in 2002. Rothschild also has been active developing livestock projects in developing countries and has been associated with the Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods working with families to learn livestock production. From 2011-2012 Rothschild was a Jefferson Science fellow working at the US Agency for International Development.
