This past September, BBE Associate Professor and Extension Engineer Erin Cortus received the Distinguished Extension Faculty Award, recognizing her outstanding contributions to Minnesota’s agricultural community through research, outreach, and engagement.
Cortus’s path to the University of Minnesota began at the University of Saskatchewan, where she discovered her passion for applying engineering principles to living systems. A summer research position at the Prairie Swine Centre sparked her interest in livestock production and air quality, work she describes as improving “the lives of animals, workers, the environment, and surrounding communities.” That experience led her to pursue graduate and doctoral research in the same field, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at Purdue University with the National Air Emissions Monitoring Study.
After eight years at South Dakota State University, Cortus joined the University of Minnesota’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering (BBE), where she has now served for another eight years. Her work spans Extension, research, and teaching, with projects focused on measuring and improving air quality in livestock environments, assessing the impacts of manure management practices, and developing sustainability metrics for animal agriculture.
Currently, Cortus and her students are evaluating practical ways to measure greenhouse gas emissions from manure systems. By testing whether periodic measurements can produce reliable, farm-specific data, their research aims to help farmers make more informed, meaningful decisions about mitigation strategies.
“Farmers want to do the right thing,” Cortus said, “but they also want their actions to be meaningful for the investment in money and time.”
For Cortus, the award is a reflection of the collaborative spirit that drives Extension work.
“I am honored to be part of many Extension teams that serve the animal industries, but also crop production,” she said. “I love the two-way street that Extension gives me for both learning and sharing. Hearing the issues that farmers and agriculture industries face firsthand helps me address pertinent and impactful issues through research and programming.”
Congratulations to Dr. Cortus on this well-deserved recognition for her leadership and dedication to Minnesota’s agricultural community.