Dr. Jerry Stuth was a Professor and Grazingland Management Specialist with the Department of Rangeland Ecology and Management at Texas A&M University. He received his BS (1970) in Range and Wildlife Management and MS (1972) in Range Science from Texas Tech University, and PhD (1975) in Rangeland Resources from Oregon State University. He joined the faculty at Texas A&M University in 1975 as an Assistant Professor; he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1981 and to Professor in 1985.
Dr. Stuth was a highly respected professor and has an outstanding record of research and publications in his academic role. He has chaired the graduate committees of over 60 Masters and PhD students. Dr. Stuth had taught both undergraduate and graduate level courses pertaining to ranch and resource planning, managerial analysis and grazing dynamics of herbivores. He was the founder the Grazingland Animal Nutrition Laboratory, a national service lab at Texas A&M, which currently processes approximately 8,000 to 10,000 samples a year for up to 800 producers nationwide, where nutritional management systems were developed based on fecal profiling via near infrared spectroscopy technology linked to nutritional decision support systems. Dr. Stuth pioneered the use of fecal profiling with near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS), a breakthrough technology for determining the nutritional value of forage intake by free ranging animals.
Dr. Stuth’s research program focused on grazing ecology and resource management planning with emphasis is on understanding the diet selection process, landscape level grazing processes and development of computerized and advanced decision support systems for improved grazingland management. Dr. Stuth has led a multi-million dollar projects funded by the Global Livestock Collaborative Research Support Program including the Livestock Early Warning System and Livestock Information Network and Knowledge system project both in East Africa.
Dr. Jerry W. Stuth is a widely recognized national and international leader in the development and application of information technology in grazingland ecosystems. He was awarded the Joan Negley Kelleher Professorship in 1994, an International Excellence Award in 2003, Outstanding Contribution to Rangeland Management Award 2005 and many others both at the state, national and international levels for his international research, which has addressed issues involving production of food and sustainability of rangelands across Africa, Asia, South America and Australia. He was also recognized for his role in mentoring and training international graduate students. Stuth has placed 23 of his graduate students in Kenya, Ethiopia, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Australia, Jordan and other countries.