Jordan L. Cox-O'Neill

Recent PhD Graduate
North Carolina State University

Dr. Jordan Cox – O’Neill recently graduated with her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University with a focus in Ruminant Nutrition. She was raised on a diversified commercial swine and beef cattle operation in Trenton, North Carolina. She grew up with a strong passion and time commitment to showing livestock (hogs, sheep, goats, and beef cattle) and reining horses. This opportunity taught her many useful skills, allowed her to travel across the entire U.S., and also meet amazing people. She was recruited in 2010 to Kansas State University under a NCAA Equestrian team scholarship to compete in reining and during that time received her B.S. degree in Animal Science in 2014. She still had a strong passion for the beef industry; so began a M.S. degree in Animal Science (Ruminant Nutrition) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research focused on beef calf backgrounding management by utilizing alternative forages, primarily corn residue and double-cropped forages (oat, turnip and radish). She received her M.S. degree in the summer of 2017, and started working toward her Ph.D. in Animal Science (Ruminant Nutrition) at North Carolina State University (NCSU) with Dr. Pickworth. At NCSU she had a strong focus in undergraduate teaching and her research pertained to stocker cattle management strategies by evaluating potential double-crop forage mixes to graze during the winter as an integrated crop-livestock system. Jordan aspires to eventually develop her passion for teaching as a professor with an accredited animal science department within a university system or developing a beef cattle consulting service for the Southeast U.S. One of her lifelong dreams currently in action is getting involved with the beef cattle industry by starting her own cow-calf or stocker operation along with her husband Dustin O’Neill.