Paige Stanley

University of California - Berkley

Stanley has extensive education in animal science. At Georgia College and State University she designed, conducted and published research on E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef, earning her Bachelor’s of Biology and Economics summa cum laude. She then joined the Animal Science Department at Michigan State University to earn a master’s degree, earning the Outstanding Master’s Student of the Year award for her research on the environmental impacts of beef production.

As a Ph.D. candidate at UC-Berkeley, Stanley designed a research project that combined methods from animal science and environmental science to publish the first life cycle analysis that included soil carbon sequestration as a potential greenhouse gas mitigation strategy for different cattle production systems. Her resulting article in Agricultural Systems in May 2018 was the journal’s most downloaded article with more than 44,000 views in one year and garnered significant media attention from outlets such as The New York Times, NPR and many others. Stanley’s research has shown that well-managed grazing systems can reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions from cattle production. She plans to pursue a career as a research scientist at USDA or other research institution.