Dr. Matthew Lucy
Dr. Matthew Lucy is a Professor of Animal Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is known for his work on the reproductive physiology of high-producing dairy cows. A native of New York State, he received a B.S. from Cornell University where he developed an interest in cows while milking at a dairy farm near campus. He then moved to Kansas State University where he began his studies of reproduction in postpartum dairy cows and later completed a Ph.D. in Dairy Science at the University of Florida on the same topic. He conducted postdoctoral research in the dairy research group at Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri before accepting a faculty position at the University of Missouri in 1994.
Dr. Lucy’s current research program examines the physiological processes regulating fertility in dairy cows and explores practical methods that evolve from this research. Early embryonic loss is one of the most-pressing reproductive problems facing the dairy industry today. His current work, therefore, focuses on early embryonic development and how uterine disease early postpartum leads to early embryonic loss. Studies range from basic (transcriptomics) to applied (whole animal field trials).
Much of his time at Mizzou has involved teaching freshman students about the dairy industry in their introduction to Animal Science course. From there, he teaches graduate level courses, does dairy reproduction research, and has had numerous Master’s and Ph.D. students that have dispersed throughout the dairy industry. Many of his students have careers in the pharmaceutical industry, managing large dairy farms, and some have continued in academia. He is a strong supporter of the University of Missouri’s Foremost Dairy.
Since 2009, Dr. Lucy has taught dairy reproduction at the US Dairy Education and Training Consortium (USDETC) in Clovis, New Mexico. The USDETC has about 55 students that attend this intensive six-week course on the dairy industry. Dr. Lucy leads the week on reproduction and typically has the best reviews of all the weeks. He has been invited to give talks in numerous countries.
Over the last ten years, several of Dr. Lucy’s research papers have been some of the most cited articles within the industry. Specifically, a paper on the microbiome of reproductive tract was the most cited article for a five-year period in the Journal of Dairy Science.
His career has included two sabbaticals working with seasonal grass-based herds. The first in 2003-2004, with the DairyNZ group in New Zealand and the second in 2013-2014 with Teagasc Moorepark in Ireland where he served as a Fulbright Specialist. He has 252 publications listed in Scopus with an h-index of 56.
Dr. Lucy has numerous honors including a recipient of the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) Hoyt Award (1990), the Midwestern Section American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2000), the ADSA Foundation Scholar Award (2000), the ADSA Pfizer Animal Health Physiology Award (2003) and the ASAS Animal Physiology and Endocrinology Award (2010).
He is a past-President of the Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council. Dr. Lucy served as a Physiology Section Editor for the Journal of Dairy Science from 2006-2012 before beginning his term as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Dairy Science in 2014. In 2019, he assumed a new role as the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of JDS Communications (sister journal to the Journal of Dairy Science) from 2020-2023. Dr. Lucy also became a Fellow of the ADSA in 2019 and received the ADSA Award of Honor in 2020.
Dr. Lucy and his wife Jacqui live in Columbia and have two children. Daughter Allison is a microscopist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and their son Thomas who is a civil engineer working in Christchurch, New Zealand.