By Dr. Sarah White

Current TAMU Faculty and Graduate Students

Equine faculty and graduate students of the Department of Animal Science attended the 26th Symposium of the Equine Science Society (ESS) hosted by North Carolina State University in Asheville, NC June 4-6. This international conference is held every two years and brings together the best equine scientists from around the world for a fun week of learning and networking. ESS strongly supports graduate students and has seven categories of graduate competition. Each student is judged on the quality of their abstract and an oral presentation of their work.

Dr. Sarah White and Christine Latham

This year, Texas A&M graduate students Hannah Valigura, Christine Latham, Rafael Martinez, Mattea Much, Randi Owen, and Amanda Bradbery presented in the graduate student competition at the symposium. Latham, a Ph.D. student, working under Dr. Sarah White was awarded first place in the Exercise Science division with her abstract on “Breed differences in skeletal muscle mitochondrial number and capacity of weanling racing-bred horses.”

Dr. Jessica Leatherwood received the Josie Coverdale Award for Outstanding Young Professionals. This award recognizes an individual under the age of 40 with less than ten years of service in academia or industry, who have made meritorious contributions to equine science, in teaching, research, public service, or industry. The award was renamed in memory of Dr. Josie Coverdale, who received this award in 2013. Dr. Coverdale’s husband was in attendance to present the award to Dr. Leatherwood.

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For more information regarding news from the Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M University, please contact Kaitlyn Harkin at ansccommunications@tamu.edu or (979) 845-1542.