Professor Schaefer is a farm boy from Kewaskum, WI. From 1979 to 1981, he was a faculty member in Animal Science at Purdue University. Since 1981, he has been a faculty member in Animal Sciences at UW-Madison. Dr. Schaefer taught courses in beef cattle production and rumen microbiology since 1981 and advised many undergraduates and numerous graduate and post-doctoral students. His research interests have been nutritional programs for finishing Holstein steers, dietary vitamin E supplementation to finishing beef cattle for the purpose of extending fresh beef color shelf-life, pasture plant species evaluation for stocker cattle utilization and parasite control in these cattle. Dan Schaefer began his role as Chair of the Department of Animal Sciences in 1999 and continued until 2016, except for 16 months as Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs in his college. After departing the associate deanship, he resumed his full-time teaching and research responsibilities until January 1, 2018, when he became the Director of the Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery program in the Animal Sciences Department. He is responsible for transitioning the program into the new $57 million meat science building. Dan retired from UW-Madison on December 31, 2019. He was recently inducted as a Fellow-Administration of the American Society of Animal Science.