Pinzon holds a bachelor’s degree in animal science from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a master’s degree in Dairy Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining Extension, Carolina gained valuable experience working in various roles within the dairy industry, including coordinating global training programs, providing bilingual support as a training specialist, and offering customized training programs as an independent consultant. When Carolina was an Outreach Specialist at Michigan State University, she collaborated on the development of an online antibiotic benchmark tool and created educational videos as part of the Antibiotic Stewardship Project.
The dairy industry is evolving, creating a demand for research-based educational materials that promote best practices and support workforce development on dairy farms. Despite abundant research on milk quality and udder health, there remains a gap in disseminating this knowledge to the dairy workforce. Training the dairy workforce presents unique challenges, including low literacy levels, a predominantly non-English speaking workforce, limited agricultural experience, and varying education levels.
The project aims to address these gaps by transforming existing research into practical, accessible content. By creating an online course utilizing a multimedia approach (articles, infographics, and videos) and ensuring bilingual accessibility, the course will serve as valuable resources for dairy farmers, managers, professionals, and consultants, facilitating workforce training. The course modules will cover essential topics related to udder health programs, including mastitis prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and safe practices in the milking parlor.
This project aligns with recommendation #11 of Dairy Task Force 2.0, emphasizing education programming for non-farm audiences.