Steven C. Ricke is honored with the USPOULTRY Distinguished Poultry Industry Career Award

This award recognizes distinctive, outstanding contributions by an industry leader or leaders based upon a broad, even nonscientific, contribution to the poultry industry.

Dr. Ricke received his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He became a USDA-ARS postdoctorate in the Microbiology Dept. at North Carolina State University, then joined the Poultry Science Dept.at Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in 1992. In 2005 he was appointed the Endowed Chair in Food Safety and Director for the Center for Food Safety at the University of Arkansas. In 2020 he became Director of the new Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery Program at the University of Wisconsin. In recognition of his research efforts, he has received several PSA Awards including the National Research Award in 1999, American Egg Board award in 2006, the Evonik Award for Achievement in Poultry Science in 2019 and the National Chicken Council Broiler Research Award in 2020. He was named a PSA Fellow in 2017.

Dr. Ricke has emphasized foodborne Salmonella and Campylobacter ecology from the broiler farm to the processing plant and mechanisms employed by pathogens to survive these highly variable poultry industry environments. His group has used this to devise preharvest and postharvest prevention strategies that better limit survival of these pathogens during poultry and egg production. Dr. Ricke is exploring microbiome and metabolomic approaches to develop a better understanding of the interaction of the gut microbiota with pathogens and to evaluate feed additives. Simultaneously, he is developing the concept of microbiome mapping for broiler processing. The overall outcomes of his research efforts are contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the microbial ecological linkages between live bird production and poultry processing. His program has generated over 400 peer reviewed research publications, and he has given over 200 invited talks.