Rhonda Miller

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.

Awards

Special honors and awards received by Dr. Miller include the American Meat Science Association Achievement Award (1992) and Distinguished Teaching Award (2006), the Texas Agricultural Extension Service Team Award for Superior Service for innovative programming and leadership in implementing training programs to help beef cattle industry leaders response to critical issues (1996), the Vice Chancellor’s Award in Excellence for Partnership efforts in the Beef 706 Program (1996), the Vice Chancellor’s Award in Excellence, Member of the Genetic Control of Beef Carcass Merit Research Team (1997), member of the National Pork Board’s Production Systems Committee (formerly the Genetic Programs Committee) and the Quality Solution Teams Advisory Committee and director of the American Meat Science Association (1998-2000), the Distinguished Teaching Award (2006). In 2003, she also received the 2003 Vice Chancellor’s Award in Excellence for her contributions as part of the Extension Beef 101 Team and in 2009 the Vice Chancellor’s Award in Excellence for the McGregor Bovine Genomics Team.

Professional memberships include the American Meat Science Association, the American Society of Animal Science, the American Society of Testing Materials E18 and F10, the Institute of Food Technologists, Alpha Zeta, Gamma Sigma Delta and Phi Tau Sigma.