Morgan Thayer received her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from the Purdue Animal Sciences Department, and she is currently working for ADM Animal Nutrition as a Swine Technical Services Manager. She has been in this role since her completion of her doctoral degree in 2021.
Thayer grew up in the town of Hope, Indiana, where she was involved in FFA and enjoyed showing pigs, which is where she connected with Associate Professor Brian Richert, PhD. Through this connection, she worked in his swine nutrition lab studying amylase enzymes in pig nutrition for all four years of her undergraduate career. She received her bachelor’s degree in animal sciences from Purdue in 2016. Her concentration in animal sciences as an undergraduate student was biosciences.
“Although the extensive science classes were challenging, they set me up for success during my Master’s and PhD courses,” Thayer said.
As a graduate student, she studied swine nutrition and graduated from Kansas State University with her master’s degree in 2018 and from Purdue with her doctoral degree in 2021. Richert was her PhD advisor, and, more specifically, she studied the effects of sow gut modifying feed additives. According to Thayer, her greatest accomplishment during her time at Purdue is completing her doctoral degree.
During her undergraduate and graduate education, Thayer took on many summer internships: ADM Animal Nutrition, Pipestone Systems and the Maschhoffs. She also served as a member of the junior board of directors for the National Junior Swine Association for two years, and she was also a member of the Purdue Alumni Student Experience (PASE) board of directors. Additionally, she was a teaching assistant for intro to animal sciences labs, upper level nutrition courses and a meat science lab.
Thayer said she chose to complete her bachelor’s degree at Purdue because it was her dream college. She came back to Purdue to complete her PhD because of the connections she made as an undergraduate student.
“I chose to come back to Purdue for my PhD because I missed our Animal Sciences family,” Thayer explained. “In undergrad, I was trained under a great group of graduate students who taught me a lot. I was excited to return to Purdue and be one of those graduate students who helped train undergraduates in the classroom as a TA, out on the farm and in the research lab.”
Thayer’s enjoyment of learning about swine nutrition pushed her to pursue a doctoral degree.
“I chose to pursue a PhD because I was still enjoying learning about swine nutrition at the end of my Master’s degree,” Thayer said. “Kansas State had opened my eyes to the intricacies of feed milling, and I realized I had much more to learn. My dream job was to become a technical services manager, and I needed a PhD to make that a reality (or so I thought).”
According to Thayer, Purdue’s animal sciences program has many strengths.
“Hands on learning is a huge strength of the Purdue [animal sciences] program!” Thayer said. “Being able to apply concepts learned in the classroom and put them to work at the feed mill, farm, science labs and meat labs is critical! The undergraduate research program is definitely a strength as well. I also think putting on extension events like Jr. Pork Day on campus is a highlight of the Purdue [Animal Sciences] Department.”
Currently, Thayer serves as a Technical Services Manager for ADM. In this role, she supports the swine sales team by presenting research that highlights the benefits of ADM products and services, helping customers address issues within their systems. She also offers diet formulation services and ration projections to smaller customers, taking into account market prices of ingredients and pigs, among other factors. She particularly enjoys collaborating with customers to conduct research within their own facilities, which helps build trust and provides the technical team with firsthand insights into their products.
Thayer mentioned that her experience in the animal sciences department helped prepare her for her career with ADM.
“It is important as a technical manager to be able to evaluate and understand research. Purdue helped me become a critical thinker when evaluating if a research trial was conducted correctly to establish validity of the research results,” Thayer said. “I learned the value of not only deep science bench top research but also applied research. Both are very important when explaining to customers why and how our specialty ingredients will help them solve their problems or make them more money. Also, being a teaching assistant helped me sharpen my verbal communication skills which has made my ability to explain our products to customers more effective.”
In addition to critical thinking and communication skills, Thayer learned several other skills during her time at Purdue.
“Other skills I learned that helped me not become too overwhelmed in my professional life is prioritization and time management,” Thayer explained. “Being able to recognize which requests are high priority vs which ones can wait and how long they might take.”
Thayer’s piece of advice for current students is to network and enhance problem solving skills.
“You never know when someone you gave a good first impression to might have a life changing opportunity for you,” Thayer said. “Build relationships beyond that first impression, and stay in touch. The animal science world is very small. Also, get comfortable problem solving! Use your resources to figure out the answer to a problem or get you going in the right direction before asking for help right away. There is a lot to learn along the way to finding the answer, not just the answer itself.”
In addition to her career with ADM, Thayer is a mom and wife. She and her husband have one son and a baby girl who is expected to arrive in the first week of October.
The Purdue Animal Sciences Department is celebrating 125 years! As a part of the celebration, Thayer was asked to upload a video congratulating the department.
