Dr. Thomas (Tom) W. Murphy is a Research Geneticist at the USDA, Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, NE. He received his B.S. in Animal Science (2010) and M.S. in Animal Breeding and Genetics (2012) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and completed a Ph.D. in Animal Breeding and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2016). Before joining the USDA, he was an Assistant Professor of Sheep Production at the Montana State University. Dr. Murphy’s research program is sheep focused and includes breed effects on meat and wool quality, evaluating maternal performance of crossbred and composite ewes, and estimating production impacts of sheep diseases with the intent of identifying genomic regions associated with enhanced resilience. Dr. Murphy has multiple publications in peer-reviewed journal articles and conference abstracts/proceedings. He has acquired nearly $2.5M of research funding. He regularly presents at regional, national, and international scientific conferences. He has served/serves on graduate student committees and mentored undergraduate student research projects. Currently, he is a member of the American Society of Animal Science, an Associate Editor for the Sheep and Goat Research Journal, a member of the technical committee on the National Sheep Improvement Program, a member of a USDA IACUC, and the secretary of NCERA-214. He regularly interacts with his stakeholders and enjoys presenting his research at producer events.