2025 CDCB Industry Meeting

Raised on a dairy farm in central Minnesota, Katie Schmitt began with CDCB in spring 2023 as Outreach Specialist. Previously, Katie worked at World Dairy Expo in various communication and marketing roles including Communications Manager. She received a bachelor’s degree in Animal Science with an emphasis in Industry and Business at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities along with minors in Communication Studies and Agricultural Food Business Management. In 2022, she was recognized as a “35 under 35” by Wisconsin Farm Bureau for her work with The Dairy Show podcast.

João Dürr is currently in his 11th year of service as CDCB Chief Executive Officer. Before CDCB, João worked as the Executive Director of Interbull based in Sweden, Professor at Universidade de Passo Fundo in Brazil, and President of the Brazilian Council of Milk Quality (CBQL). A native of Brazil, João received his Bachelor’s degree in agriculture at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil; followed by master’s and doctorate degrees from McGill University, Montreal, in animal breeding and genetics.

Kristen has served as Geneticist at CDCB since October 2016. She studied at North Carolina State University, where she received her Bachelor’s and Doctorate degree in animal science and quantitative genetics. Her Ph.D. research focused on utilization of producer-recorded cow health information to improve understanding of the genetics behind disease resistance, analysis of the health data, and estimation of traditional and genomic breeding values of dairy animals for common health traits. Kristen conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Florida and USDA AGIL involving fertility and reproductive technology traits, along with continued work on development of health trait evaluations.

John serves as Chief Research and Development Officer. Before coming to CDCB in March 2024, he spent three years as the Senior Vice President, Research and Development, for PEAK Genetics, where he oversaw genetics and reproductive biology research for the largest producer of cattle genetics in the world. Prior to joining PEAK, he spent 17 years as a Research Geneticist (Animals) and Acting Research Leader for USDA’s Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory (formerly the Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory).

John has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed research articles, mentored many postdoctoral scientists and graduate students, and is a frequent speaker at industry and scientific meetings. His research has been recognized with the Jay L. Lush Award in Breeding and Genetics from the American Dairy Science Association, the Distinguished Service Award from the National Dairy Herd Information Association, and the Peer Research Award from the National Association of Animal Breeders.

A native of south Louisiana, he holds a Ph.D. in animal breeding and genetics from Louisiana State University and is a graduate of the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts. His research interests include genetic improvement of fertility, health, and fitness traits in dairy cattle; development of economic selection indices; pedigree analysis; biological mechanisms underlying fertility; and recessive genetic defects. He’s also a Life Member of the Bowie, Md., Volunteer Fire Department and is a founding member of the Lethal Recessives. John, his wife Misty, and their sons Ellery and Henry live in Sun Prairie, Wis., with two cats of dubious origin.

Ashley joined CDCB in June 2024 as Support Scientist, a new position to provide scientific and technical assistance in various research projects and ensure successful execution, reporting, and implementation of priorities in the CDCB strategic plan.

For the previous two years, Ashley worked as Research Geneticist at USDA. Her work included building efficient pipelines for analysis of genomic data, investigation of genetic variation and genotype-by-environment interactions for body condition score in beef cattle, evaluation of statistical models for analysis of longevity data, and a variety of additional projects.

Ashley’s training is from the University of Georgia, where she earned a Ph.D. in animal breeding and genetics under Dr. Romdhane Rekaya and a B.S. A. in animal science. While a graduate research assistant at UGA, she was engaged in research on statistical challenges to preselection of SNP markers, data collection and BLUP analysis to characterize heritability of hornfly tolerance in beef cattle, collection of beef and poultry phenotype data, and research documentation in manuscripts and peer-reviewed journals.

Taylor M. McWhorter, Ph.D., joined CDCB as a Geneticist in February 2023. Taylor studied at the University of Georgia (Athens, GA), where she received her bachelor’s degree in animal science and doctoral degree in quantitative genetics. Her Ph.D. research consisted of developing phenotypic and genomic selection tools for U.S. dairy producers. Taylor’s dissertation evaluated beef bull fertility in beef-on-dairy matings, heat tolerance of dairy cattle, and the genomic evaluation theory: single-step genomic BLUP (ssGBLUP). During her graduate studies, Taylor interned with CDCB and USDA Animal Genomics and Improvement Lab in 2019, as well as, Select Sires, Inc. in 2021-2022.