A longtime professional association will come full circle for a West Virginia University scholar when he becomes a fellow of the Poultry Science Association at the end of this month.
Robert L. Taylor, Jr., professor and director of the Division of Animal and Nutritional Sciences and co-director of WVU’s School of Agriculture and Food in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, will accept the honor July 30 at the 104th PSA meeting in Louisville.
During the 1977 PSA meeting at Auburn University, he attended an immunology symposium featuring notable poultry immunologists including Bruce Glick. The encounter led Taylor to complete his Ph.D. in Glick’s laboratory at Mississippi State University.
During his tenure on the Animal and Nutritional Sciences faculty at the University of New Hampshire, Taylor continued to emphasize the genetics of immunity in his teaching and research. He taught courses in animal and human genetics, immunology, and biology. On the research front, he joined a multi-state research project, “Genetic Bases for Resistance and Immunity to Avian Diseases.”
Over the course of his continuing participation in that project, he has developed unique genetic stocks to facilitate immunology studies. The work sparked an enduring interest in the conservation of genetic resources, and Taylor has served on the National Animal Germplasm Program’s Poultry Committee.
Taylor has produced 100 research publications,115 abstracts and directed numerous undergraduate and graduate student investigations. He attributes his success to the strong foundation provided in the Glick laboratory as well as collaboration with multi-state project researchers, particularly Elwood Briles of Northern Illinois University. He has been a PSA member since 1978. He also holds memberships in the World’s Poultry Science Association, American Association of Immunologists, Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, and Sigma Xi.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, TN. He went on to earn a master of science from Auburn University. He came to WVU’s Davis College in 2014, providing leadership for 580 undergraduate students, 67 graduate students, 26 faculty, and 34 staff in the college’s animal science, biochemistry, and human nutrition programs.
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