The Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) presented the 2023 Baker/Cundiff Award to Elizabeth Dressler, Berryton, Kansas, July 3 during the group’s annual symposium in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The annual Frank Baker/Larry Cundiff Beef Improvement Essay Contest for graduate students provides an opportunity to recognize outstanding student research and competitive writing in honor of Frank Baker and Larry Cundiff.
Dressler is working on her doctorate at Kansas State University. Her essay was titled “Methodologies to quantify gas production and variance components associated with gas production from beef cattle.”
Historically, winning essays are published in the annual BIF Research Symposium and Annual Meeting Proceedings, which will be produced after the event and posted to the BIF website, BIFSymposium.com. Dressler will receive a $1,000 scholarship.
Baker is widely recognized as the “founding father” of BIF. He played a key leadership role in helping establish BIF in 1968 while he was chairman of the department of animal science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Cundiff retired after 40 years as a research geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service. He was the research leader of the genetics and breeding research unit at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center from 1976 until 2005. Cundiff not only designed, conducted and published some of the most important beef breeding research of the 20th century, but also led in the transfer of new technology to the beef industry through his continued work in BIF and presentations made across the nation and around the world.
More than 300 beef producers, academia and industry representatives attended the organization’s 55th Annual Research Symposium and Convention in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. BIF’s mission is to help improve the industry by promoting greater acceptance of beef cattle performance evaluation.
For more information about this year’s symposium, including additional award winners and coverage of the meeting and tour, visit BIFSymposium.com.