Research Faculty Spotlight: Robert Rhoads
October 27, 2025
Robert Rhoads
Professor, Animal Science – School of Animal Sciences
What are you working on now?
My long-term goal has been to investigate the integration of systemic and cellular mechanisms governing growth, lactation and metabolic homeostasis during environmental insults and disease states. Our lab is currently focused on the impact of heat stress (stemming from environmental influences, nutrition and the combination thereof) on whole animal metabolism and skeletal muscle physiology.
What excites you most about your research today?
In my research and the field of environmental physiology, specifically heat stress, I get to ask questions that can span across cattle, pigs, chickens (and even humans and mice!) and affect numerous physiological states, such as growth and lactation. This means that discoveries we make in the lab today can be used by others in various industries and extension settings to develop tools that help animals cope with a hot environment and improve their production and health.
"...discoveries we make in the lab today can be used by others in various industries and extension settings to develop tools that help animals cope with a hot environment and improve their production and health."
Were there any mentors, books, or classes that deeply influenced your academic direction?
When I started my undergraduate studies, I was focused on becoming a veterinarian. However, that would begin to change when my first advisor and mentor, Dr. Alan Bell, offered me an undergraduate research position in his laboratory that was focused on fetal physiology. As I continued in his lab, I was excited how the pursuit of scientific research supported my curiosity and creativity and vice versa. I found that being a scientist allowed a freedom to develop questions and the ability to seek the answer. It became clear by my senior year when I had the opportunity to pursue a DVM or Ph.D. that graduate school and research had won me over.
What do you love about teaching or sharing your field with students?
I have been teaching a section of APSC 4004, Contemporary Issues in the Animal Sciences, at VT for 13 years. I love having the ability to share and help students think critically about current issues involving environmental stressors in the field of animal science. Each year, our discussions and their presentations highlight their discovery and provide great questions and viewpoints that stimulate my thinking and approach to my research.
If you could go back in time and tell your younger self something about this field, what would it be?
Buckle up, it’s going to be an exciting ride!