Dr. Troy Rowan joined the Animal Science faculty on January 1st as a part of the UTIA Genomics Center for the Advancement of Agriculture. At UT, Dr. Rowan’s research program will bring together many types of “big data”, both phenotypic and genomic, to understand the genetics of economically-relevant traits in beef cattle. He will also be delivering Extension programming in the area of applied beef cattle genetics and genomics.

Troy grew up on a small Charolais operation in Southwest Iowa. He was an active 4-Her, exhibiting home-raised heifers and steers both locally and nationally. He attended undergraduate at Creighton University in Omaha, NE where he majored in Biology. Despite his initial desire to pursue a career in the medical field, he was drawn to research, and missed being involved with the beef industry. Following graduation in 2016, he started his Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Missouri. There he performed research on the genomic variants that underlie artificial selection and environmental adaptation in beef cattle. Now, he’s excited to be in Knoxville and looks forward to meeting all of the people that make the Tennessee beef industry so special!