By Jim Massey
Freelance writer
Brittney Davidson and her mentor, Jimena Laporta, have gotten to know each other pretty well during their last six years together.
Davidson is a Ph.D. student and a Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellow in Laporta’s lactation physiology lab in the UW-Madison Animal and Dairy Sciences Department. They arrived on campus at the same time in 2020 when Laporta took her position as an assistant professor in Madison, coming together from the University of Florida, where Davidson was just completing her master’s degree and Laporta was an assistant professor of mammary gland physiology.
As Laporta put it, they basically grew up together.
“She started with me as an undergraduate student, then was a master’s degree student, and now she’s graduating with her Ph.D.,” Laporta says. “I was growing up as a professor and she was growing up as a student.”
Davidson is a native of Melbourne, Fla., and coming out of high school she opted to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, about three hours from home. So it was quite a leap of faith when she decided to follow Laporta to Wisconsin as a Ph.D. student.
Davidson enrolled in college with plans to become a veterinarian. She got hooked on animals during an ecology class in high school, when she took care of the class pet, a chinchilla.
“I had a dream to go to vet school and I was going to be the best vet in the world,” she says.
As an undergraduate in Florida, in an attempt to broaden her knowledge base about animals, she took a farm evaluation course, under the direction of Mary Sowerby, who happened to be an extension dairy specialist with the university. It was through that course work that Davidson was introduced to the dairy industry. She hadn’t even seen a picture of a cow until she was a college student.
“Dr. Sowerby would need students to go to events and she would snatch you up by the collar and say, ‘You’re coming with me,’ ” Davidson says. “I slowly started to fall in love with the dairy industry.
“I remember the first holiday season when I went home (from college) and told my parents I wasn’t going to vet school, I was going to go into dairy science, and they were like, ‘Huh? Are you okay? Do you we need to come and rescue you from college?’ ”
When Laporta accepted the position at UW-Madison, she asked the graduate students who were working with her whether they wanted to follow her to Wisconsin. Davidson offered a quick yes.
“That is very gratifying when a student is willing to leave her comfort zone and come all the way across the country to continue under my mentorship,” Laporta says. “It was very nice to navigate that transition together.”
Davidson immersed herself in Laporta’s dairy animal heat-stress studies. One of those studies started with calves Laporta brought with her to Wisconsin from Florida. The study was designed to study how in utero heat stress affects calves at birth, weaning, puberty and during their first gestation.
“This was a longitudinal study that not many people are doing,” Davidson says. “Since then we have been able to follow those animals through multiple generations, so we are looking at the transgenerational effects of that first cow being heat stressed. We see continuous effects the whole time.”
Davidson’s second research project was funded by a feed additive company to determine whether feeding an essential amino acid to heat-stressed animals could help cows overcome the stress. She recently published her findings and is currently wrapping up the data analysis on that project.
Laporta notes Davidson has been recognized by the American Dairy Science Association for winning multiple awards in presentations and poster competitions as a Ph.D. student, and has been a prolific graduate student with 13 publications and a handful more still to come.
Davidson received the Louis and Elsa Thomsen Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship for the 2024-25 academic year, which has helped fund her research during the current school year. The John Brandt Memorial Scholarship during the past academic year, presented by the Land O’Lakes Foundation, provided a $25,000 stipend to continue her graduate studies in dairy research. And she also received the American Dairy Science Association Midwest Dairy Scholar Award, which recognizes the research accomplishments of Ph.D. students from the Midwest.
In each case, Laporta encouraged Davidson to apply for the awards and scholarships.
“Part of my job as a professor is to motive students to apply for these things and give them the confidence that they can do it,” Laporta says. “My previous mentors before I became a professor did the same thing, and now that I’m on this side of the desk, I’m trying to do that, too. I want to give them the confidence that even if you don’t win, it’s okay, it’s about the journey and the exposure and getting out of your comfort zone.”
Laporta says Davidson is a student who takes her time to do things, but when she completes a task, she provides a product “that is in very good shape.”
“She’s very diligent in her work,” she says. “That’s the type of student we look for. She is a well-rounded student who is a good example for others.”
Davidson, who is scheduled to graduate with her Ph.D. in May, was offered a post-doctoral position with the U.S. Department in Agriculture in Ames, Iowa, but at the time this story was written, federal funding for the position was uncertain.
If the job falls through, Laporta says Davidson can continue her research in Madison.
“I owe her my life,” Davidson says of Laporta. “She believed in me before I believed in myself. She always fights for opportunities for all of us (graduate students). She’s been amazing – I will be sad to leave one day.”
Regardless of her career path, Davidson says she will still be in the dairy field, so she hopes to collaborate on projects with Laporta in the future.