Dr. A. E. 'Gene' Freeman, Professor of Animal Science and Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture at Iowa State University, is the Morrison Award Year 2000 recipient. This is the highest award given by the American Society of Animal Science. The award will be presented at it annual meeting, to be held in Baltimore this July.

Dr. Freeman was born in Lewisburg WV on a 30-cow Jersey dairy farm. He received his B.S. degree in dairy husbandry at West Virginia University in 1952 and the M.S. degree in animal breeding in 1954. Cornell University granted him his Ph.D. degree in 1957. He joined the Iowa State University faculty following his graduation and has been at Iowa State his entire professional career. He has taught both Undergraduate and graduate courses from 1957 to date. In 1978, he was designated Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture. Dr. Freeman's research has been in animal breeding with primary responsibility for dairy breeding. Since about 70 percent of the dairy cattle are bred artificially, much of his work has been directed toward eventual use by artificial insemination (AI) organizations.

Dr. Freeman with his students and colleagues have published 209 refereed papers, 182 abstracts, 237 research mimeographs, and 179 popular articles. He served as major professor for 32 M.S. degree students and 38 Ph.D. degree students. Freeman has worked extensively with industry groups, especially the artifical breeding industry (AI) where most of the knowledge generated by him and his students has been applied. He has given advice to all of the AI organizations in the United States for improving their breeding programs and this continues to date. Further, Dr. Freeman's work has had an impact on breeding programs in AI organizations in Europe, particularly in The Netherlands where the three top executives in Holland Genetics studied with Freeman. His work in sire evaluation for dystocia went from the original idea to an industry program in five years. Of equal impact has been his pioneering research on prediction of herd life. He also assisted in developing linear type score that are universally used and has developed, with colleagues, a method of predicting health of daughters of AI sires that looks very promising for the immunocompetency of the sires.

Dr. Freeman was elected President of the most recent World Congress for Genetics Applied to Livestock Genetics (WCGALP). He and his wife Christine have three daughters.