Rhonda Miller

Professional Summary

Dr. Rhonda Miller is a professor in the meat science section in the Department of Animal Science. She holds appointments on the Faculty of Food Science and Technology and the Graduate Faculty of Nutrition.

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and her doctorate from Colorado State University. She conducted her doctorate research in cooperation with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Clay Center, Nebraska.

Dr. Miller teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in meat science and sensory science. In addition, she directs the Sensory Testing Facility within the Department of Animal Science.

Dr. Miller conducts research on the quality, quantity, safety and usefulness of meat and meat products through her appointment with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. Her current research is on the antemortem and postmortem factors affecting the composition, palatability and quality of red meat; development of automated grading technology to determine quality in beef and pork; and the use of non-meat ingredients to improve the shelf-life and/or safety of red meat with emphasis on development of value-added red meat products.

She has been director of the Sensory Science Evaluation Laboratory since Fall 1988. An expert-trained descriptive attribute sensory panel is supported by outside contracts and grants. This panel provides support for eight meat scientists and faculty and scientists from other institutions and industry cooperators where a variety of meat and food products are evaluated for flavor and palatability. Consumer sensory evaluation panels also are conducted.

Before joining the faculty at Texas A&M University, Dr. Miller was Director of Research and Development at Monfort, Inc., the second-largest beef and pork packer in the United States. During her tenure at Monfort, she developed more than 300 new meat products for its further processed division.