Around here, “teaching is research, and research is teaching, and it all should be fun”!

Animal science students are the next generation of veterinarians, scientists, and citizens. Russ enjoys helping students be their best, and to challenge their understanding of all things theoretical and applied. Russ was recently recognized as a campus wide “Distinguished Teacher” at UCDavis, and also received the 2017 Distinguished Teacher prize awarded by the Western Section of the American Society of Animal Science.

ANS 001, Domestic Animals and People. The fun began Fall, 2016 with Russ teaching this introductory animal science class to 420 students. The class was a full-on party – students got to flip sheep, shuck oysters, and milk cows – at the same time learning all about what makes animals as fascinating as they are!  To top the quarter off, the class had the first inaugural ANS001 Ice Cream Contest, that included students making 22 different flavors that went through 2 rounds of high profile judging! And of course not to forget that Russ’ dog Sunny, and his Morgan horse Red, got to come to class too!
	ANS 124, Lactation – a senior class for Animal Science majors  (Winter quarter, 4U). In this class Russ covers all aspects of normal and abnormal mammary gland biology and lactation across  species. In the lab, students have various hands-on experiences including anatomy, histology and morphology, genetics, biochemistry and dairy management.
Past class – ANS 139, Experimental Animal Physiology (Spring quarter, 3 U). In this methods-based course, Russ and students used a variety of approaches for the experimental study of physiology. Students performed a range of experiments using techniques such as histology and histochemistry, RT-PCR and PCR, ELISA, colorimetric assays, and sampling techniques. The course includes substantial out-of-class independent research.