Our Team

Augustin Ríus, associate professor in the Department of Animal Science, received his undergraduate education in veterinary medicine from the National University of La Plata, Argentina. After graduation, Ríus obtained a fellowship to work at the School of Veterinary Medicine in La Plata. From there, he then moved to the USDA- Dairy Forage Research Center, Madison, Wisconsin as visiting scholar and worked on phosphorous metabolism in lactating dairy cows with the late Larry Satter, professor of dairy science in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and a researcher at the US Dairy Forage Research Center. He then joined the Department of Animal Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pursue his MS degree in the laboratory of Geoff Dahl who is now professor at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. While there, Ríus worked in the field of environmental physiology elucidating the effect of photoperiod in dairy cattle. After graduation, he moved to Blacksburg, Virginia to pursue doctoral research in the Department of Dairy Science at Virginia Tech. He joined the lab of Mark Hanigan, a professor there, to investigate the effect of amino acids and energy on lactating dairy cattle. After defending his dissertation, Ríus obtained a scientist position at DairyNZ in Hamilton, New Zealand. He worked for four years investigating the effect of milking frequency and feeding management tools on pasture-based lactating dairy cows. While at DairyNZ, he also worked closely with dairy producers on topics such as nutrition, feeding, and grazing management.