Karen Beauchemin

Karen Beauchemin is a federal scientist in Canada who is recognized as an international authority on methane emissions and ruminant nutrition. Her research helps develop farming techniques that improve how we raise cattle for meat and milk, while reducing the environmental impacts of livestock production.

The work of Beauchemin and her colleagues, has led to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada being recognized as a world leader in measuring greenhouse gases and in developing strategies to reduce emissions from agricultural activities including from livestock production. Beauchemin has been recognized with awards from the Canadian Society of Animal Science, American Dairy Science Association, the Chinese Academy of Science, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry in Stockholm, Sweden.

Biography Beauchemin was born in 1956 in Montreal, Quebec. She was raised in Nova Scotia until the age of 10, and then moved with her family to Quebec. During her formative years, she developed an interest in food and nutrition, which led her to pursue a career in animal science.

Beauchemin obtained a BSc in agriculture with honours at McGill University (1978), an MSc in animal nutrition at Université de Laval (1982), and a PhD in ruminant nutrition with distinction at the University of Guelph (1988). She married Sean McGinn in 1983, and together they have two daughters. She and her husband reside in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Career

Before starting her PhD, Beauchemin spent several years in the feed industry as a beef and dairy cattle nutritionist for a large feed manufacturer. She began her research career as a scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre in Alberta in 1988. She was promoted to RES5, the highest level in the federal research scientist classification, in 2005. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, the University of Saskatchewan, Utah State University, and a former adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia. She studied the dietary factors that contribute to subacute ruminal acidosis, as well as the role of physically effective fiber in stimulating rumen function and digestion. The focus of her work has been to identify the mechanisms of action whereby enzymes improve feed digestion, such that feed enzymes that ensure positive and consistent results can be developed for the cattle industry.

More recently, Beauchemin extended her research to examine the larger environmental aspects of cattle farming. She developed a research program in the early 2000s to measure methane emissions from cattle with the goal of finding ways to curb those emissions. Her research is leading to novel nutritional approaches that improve air quality and lessen the environmental footprint of the livestock sector. Her research has found that by feeding a new methane-inhibiting supplement to cattle, t it is possible to reduce methane production by 30%. a prestigious award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, for her work on curbing methane emissions. Beauchemin used the prize money to establish a scholarship fund at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana to promote the education of women. So far, the scholarship has been awarded to three female graduate students pursuing graduate degrees in animal science.

Beauchemin served as an invited member of the Committee on Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle, National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The committee recently published the 8th Revised edition of the Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle, which is the feeding guidelines for beef cattle in North America.As the sole Canadian invited member, her contributions to the Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle, helped ensure that the publication was also suitable for Canadian conditions. Today this is universally used by nutritionists, veterinarians, and feed regulators such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Throughout her career, Beauchemin has published a total of 16 book chapters, 21 authoritative reviews, 390 peer-reviewed scientific papers, with many of these papers published in high impact journals, and more than 850 technology transfer articles, abstracts, conference proceedings, and presentations.

Honours and awards

B.Sc. awarded with honours, 1978 Ph.D. awarded with distinction, 1988 Natural Science and Engineering Research Council doctoral student award, 1983–88 1st prize for presentation in CSAS Graduate Student Competition, 1987 Canadian Society of Animal Science Young Scientist Award, 1994 Travel Scholarship, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, 2005 American Dairy Science Association Pioneer Hi-Bred Forage Award, 2005 Gold Harvest Award, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2021 Women of Impact in Canada - Women in STEM Gallery