Distinguished Awards Celebration 2007

Order of the Knoll Faculty/Staff Award

Max F. Rothschild

To Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture Max F. Rothschild for exceptional achievement and premier leadership in livestock research, education, and service

Max F. Rothschild is a premier geneticist who is leading a national effort to map the pig genome and who has led Iowa State University to international prominence in swine genetics in his 27-year career here.

Rothschild became interested in genetics at an early age. He received a BS in animal science from the University of California, Davis, in 1974, an MS in animal science from the University of Wisconsin in 1975, and a PhD in animal breeding from Cornell University in 1978. He joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 1978 and came to Iowa State in 1980.

His research and teaching have been devoted to the study of animal breeding and molecular genetics, including the identification of factors affecting inheritance of serum cholesterol in swine, factors associated with growth and performance in the pig, and the genetics of disease resistance. Recent efforts have been directed toward identifying genes controlling traits of economic importance in the pig, and many of the genes discovered by Rothschild and his research group are now used in breeding to improve pig performance. He also serves as director of the Center for Integrated Animal Genomics at Iowa State.

He is widely recognized as an international leader in pig genetics, and since 1993 he has served as the coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Pig Genome Mapping project. He has produced more than 250 refereed publications and 450 other publications, and he has presented invited papers in more than 30 nations. He holds nine patents.

Rothschild is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the USDA Group Honor Award, American Society of Animal Science Award in Animal Breeding and Genetics, two R&D 100 Awards, and was named Iowa Inventor of the Year in 2002. He was the first faculty member selected to present a Presidential Lecture at Iowa State.

Rothschild is active in humanitarian efforts personally and professionally. He volunteers with the Emergency Residence Project and Good Neighbor Emergency Assistance in Ames, and is involved with Iowa State's Sustainable Rural Livelihoods program to help improve the quality of life for people in Uganda. He traveled to Uganda four times in the last two years, leading an effort to improve pig production to increase the amount of protein in people's diets.

He and his wife, Denise, reside in Ames, Iowa. They have two children, Louise and Daniel.