Choct, Mingan
From Poultry Hub
Contents |
Positions
- Chief Executive Officer, Poultry CRC
- Professor, University of New England
About Mingan
Mingan Choct was born in 1960 in Inner Mongolia, China. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Inner Mongolia University of Agriculture in Hohhot, China in 1983 and commenced his career there as an associate lecturer in animal nutrition. In 1987, he migrated to Australia, completing a Master of Science degree at the University of New South Wales in 1988 and a PhD on carbohydrate nutrition in poultry at the University of Sydney in 1991.
That same year, Mingan moved to Adelaide, South Australia, to begin postdoctoral research at the CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition. In 1992 he was appointed as a research scientist and developed numerous national and international projects on carbohydrate chemistry and nutrition.
In 1995, academia beckoned and he accepted a position at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales as a lecturer in animal science, progressing to a full professor by 2003. In addition to the many undergraduates he has taught, a total of 35 students have completed their Honours, Masters and PhD degrees under Mingan’s supervision and co-supervision.
Despite his relatively short career in research and teaching, Mingan, in collaboration with his colleagues, has published more than 250 papers in journals and proceedings. Many of his papers on non-starch polysaccharides, feed enzymes and gut microflora are definitive studies that continue to be frequently cited by researchers in the field. Indeed, Mingan has been an invited keynote speaker at many national and international conferences and has extensive links with institutes and industries throughout the world.
In 2003, Mingan successfully raised AUD80 million to establish the Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre (Poultry CRC), serving as its Chief Executive Officer since its inception. In less than five years, the Poultry CRC has lodged four patents, brought seven vaccines to various stages of development, transferred ten rapid diagnostic tests to the Australian poultry industry, supported 35 students for their Honours, Masters and PhD degrees in poultry science, initiated three undergraduate courses dedicated to poultry science, and established a sustainable, user-driven one-stop-shop for poultry information freely available to the world via the Web at www.poultryhub.org.
Over the years, Mingan has received several prestigious awards for excellence. He was presented with the Inner Mongolian Provincial Student Medal in 1982, the Australian Society of Animal Production Young Scientist Award in 1990, the World’s Poultry Science Association’s Syd Wilkins Memorial Prize in 1991, The Australian Poultry Award in 2004 and the Alltech Biotechnology Global Medal of Excellence in 2005. In addition, he gave the Clide Eby Lecture at the North Carolina State University in 2005 and the Robert Fraser Gordon Lecture at the UK Poultry Science Conference in 2008.
Mingan is a scientific advisor to the International Foundation for Science and he is on the editorial boards of several international journals (including assistant editor of both British Poultry Science and Poultry Science).
Contact
Phone: (02) 6773 5121
Email: mchoct@poultrycrc.com.au
Web: http://www.poultrycrc.com.au
