Outstanding Swine Academic of the Year
Given annually to an AASV member employed in academia who has demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and service to the swine veterinary profession. Faculty members, graduate students, and researchers are eligible to receive this award.
Dr Rodger Main is the 2024 recipient of the Outstanding Swine Academic of the Year Award.
Dr. Main received his BS and DVM from Iowa State University and PhD from Kansas State University. He is a Professor and Director of the Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (ISU VDL). ISU VDL’s team of 180 faculty and staff play an active role on the frontlines of US animal agriculture processing approximately 120,000 diagnostic case submissions and conducting more than 1.5 million diagnostic assays each year. Peers credit Dr. Main’s commitment and innovation as key to transforming the ISU VDL into a global leader in food animal diagnostic medicine.
More recently, Dr. Main has also been serving as the principal investigator of the U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan endeavor that centers on bringing industry, state, and federal partners together to establish an officially recognized platform for safeguarding, certifying, and bettering the health of U.S. swine and the longer-term competitiveness of the U.S. pork industry.
Dr. Main is a member of the AASV committee on transboundary and emerging diseases and has served on many others. He delivered the Alex Hogg Memorial Lecture at the 2019 AASV Annual Meeting. He has been recognized for his outstanding service to the swine industry with the Allen D. Leman Science in Practice Award (2008), the AASV Howard Dunne Memorial Award (2017), the Iowa State University Award for Outstanding Achievement in Extension or Professional Practice (2020), and the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians Distinguished Service Award (2022).
Appreciative of his career and colleagues, Dr. Main stated, “I am most certainly humbled and honored to be recognized by my peers in this way. I feel extremely fortunate to have been given the opportunity to work with and for so many great people over the course of my career. I fully realize that any such recognition that comes my way is simply an acknowledgment and appreciation for the contributions being made by those of which I have the good fortune to work with and be supported by both in the workplace and at home, and for that, I am indeed most certainly grateful.”
Previous Outstanding Swine Academic of the Year Award recipients:
2023 Gary Althouse
2022 Montserrat Torremorell