Becker, Beyer Receive Larry Corah KSU Graduate Student Awards

Kansas State University Department of Animal Sciences and Industry graduate students Larissa Becker and Erin Beyer were recognized as 2022 recipients of the Larry Corah Graduate Student Award.  

Becker completed her undergraduate career at Iowa State University before coming to Kansas State University (K-State) to pursue a master’s degree in applied swine nutrition. She was awarded the Outstanding Master Student Award, which includes a $1,000 scholarship. She is a graduate research assistant who has been proven to be very involved with not only her own research projects, but also as an undergraduate research coordinator and teaching assistant.  

Becker has three distinct research topics, which include: 1) establishing lysine requirements for Duroc-sired finishing pigs in a commercial environment; 2) development of an available phosphorous release curve for a commercial phytase source, and 3) evaluating different mycotoxin control strategies in nursery pig diets in a commercial setting. She has also served as the ASI Graduate Student Association president and was selected as the National ASAS Graduate Student Director for 2022-24.  

Bob Goodband, K-State ASI professors and one of Becker’s advisors, says, “Larissa completed a diverse research program during her master’s degree as a part of her goal to become a well-rounded swine nutritionist. We sincerely feel Larissa’s scholastic achievement, research success, teaching involvement and contributions to the mission of the department make her a tremendous individual deserving of this award.” 

Beyer was awarded the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award, which includes a $1,500 scholarship. Her research efforts have been vast. Her dissertation work is a series of projects looking at the impact of degree of doneness on eating quality ranging from very basic work – evaluating the physiochemical changes during cooking – to very applied – feeding more than 250 consumers samples from various muscles at various degrees of doneness.  

Travis O’Quinn, K-State ASI associate professor, says, “In brief, Erin is the single most outstanding graduate student with whom I have ever worked. In her time at K-State, Erin has displayed an incredibly high level of leadership and aptitude in everything in which she has worked and has truly been a key leader within our program and department.” 

Beyer served as a coach of the 2021 Meat Judging Team. With her guidance, the team finished the year as Reserve National Champions and had great success. Alongside the team’s success’, Beyer spent more than 100 days traveling with the team, cutting product and practicing for events. “Erin is a phenomenal teacher. Her ability to connect with students is second to none. Visit with any of the students from this team and they will very quickly describe to you the large and lasting impact that Erin made on their lives,” O’Quinn adds. 

Both the Ph.D. and master’s awards are presented in honor of Dr. Larry Corah, who served for 25 years as a K-State ASI beef extension and research specialist. After retiring from K-State, he went on to work for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association as director of production systems and then served 17 years as the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) LLC vice president of supply. The scholarships are supported from the Larry Corah Graduate Student Enhancement Fund. 

The award winners are selected based on scholastic achievement, research activity and success, teaching activities, faculty evaluation and overall contributions to the mission of the department.