USPOULTRY and the USPOULTRY Foundation recognized Dr. Nikki Shariat as the recipient of the annual Dr. Charles Beard Research Excellence Award. Dr. Shariat is an associate professor in the Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center, Department of Population Health, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia (UGA). The award is named in honor of Dr. Charles Beard, former director of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory and former vice president of research at USPOULTRY.

The USPOULTRY Foundation Research Advisory Committee (FRAC) selected Dr. Shariat for this award due to her exceptional research focused on Salmonella. She has been the principal investigator for four USPOULTRY-funded projects: “Improved Monitoring of Salmonella serovar Enteritidis in Broiler Breeder Flocks,” “Profiling Salmonella serotypes through broiler processing,” “High-Resolution Salmonella Serotyping to Improve Surveillance in Turkeys,” and “Identifying a New Pre-Harvest Gold Standard Salmonella Sampling Strategy to Predict Salmonella Burden on Broiler and Turkey Flocks Arriving for Processing.” She has also been a co-investigator on one additional USPOULTRY project, “Deboning Salmonella Contamination: Does Cross-Contamination During Debone Contribute to Salmonella Contamination in Ground Turkey?”

“Dr. Shariat was an exceptional and highly deserving nominee for this award, recognized for her innovative and impactful research on Salmonella transmission, detection, control and mitigation. Her work has meaningfully advanced the poultry industry and provided critical insights that strengthen our collective ability to understand, manage and regulate Salmonella,” said USPOULTRY Vice President of Research Programs Dr. Denise Heard.

Dr. Shariat holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of East Anglia (UK) and a PhD degree from Vanderbilt University. Following postdocs at the University of California, San Francisco and Penn State, she was faculty at Gettysburg College before becoming faculty at UGA in 2019. Her research program is focused on understanding Salmonella serovar diversity and ecology by developing and using novel molecular technologies. Her research team applies these technologies to assess serovar dynamics in food animal production and processing. She works directly with food animal production industries to develop logistically feasible approaches for Salmonella control.

For several years, Dr. Shariat has also been investigating the ecology of Salmonella in freshwater, and more recently, the role of wild birds in the transmission of Salmonella. She recently served on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and is currently serving on the Salmonella Technical Committee for the National Poultry Improvement Plan.

The goal of the Dr. Charles Beard Research Excellence Award is to recognize outstanding completed research projects, funded by USPOULTRY or the USPOULTRY Foundation, which have made a significant and positive impact on the poultry industry. The award was presented by Bill Griffith, incoming chair for the USPOULTRY board of directors and long-standing FRAC member, during the USPOULTRY Chair’s Reception.