Beef cattle production is faced with a variety of challenges summarized by the need to deliver safe and healthy consumable product to global market through efficient and sustainable production methods.  Some of the specific challenges are driven by interactions between cattle and microbial populations both within the host and external populations in the environment. The Ruminant Animal Health Research Program seeks to address these challenges through basic and applied research that focuses on the interface between microbial populations and beef cattle.  Specifically, we pair advanced genomics tools with a variety of epidemiological approaches to study the complexities and dynamics of microbial ecology and host response to infection.  In addition, the Ruminant Animal Health Research Program also partners with an number of scientists in research involving the effects of feeding distiller’s grains and impaired air quality on animal health, prevalence of food safety pathogens in feedlot cattle, and theoretical epidemiology and statistics.