Standing in front of the iconic fountain at the Edmon Low Library in 2010, Morgan Pfeiffer fell in love with Oklahoma State University (OSU).
“The people were just unreal,” she explained, noting the sea of friendly faces that welcomed her on that first campus visit. “I was 15 hours from home, but it still felt like it was home.”
Pfeiffer said goodbye to Colorado to take a chance with the land grant university’s livestock judging team. She had applied to 12 different colleges, but a conversation with livestock judging coach Mark Johnson sealed Pfeiffer’s future with Stillwater, OK.
At OSU, the “right way” to the livestock judging team was to start out with meat judging, Pfeiffer said. It was a simple decision at the time, but it was one that’s been shaping her life ever since.
The beginning of a career
Today, Dr. Morgan Pfeiffer is still in Stillwater, but now she’s serving as an assistant professor of meat quality in the animal and food sciences department. The young woman walking the halls today is a far cry from the student who first ventured into campus’ meat cooler a decade earlier.
“I thought I was terrible,” Pfeiffer admits of those initial weeks on the meats judging team.
The college sophomore had gone so far as to tell her parents to not even bother coming in for the National Western banquet. Thankfully, however, she said, “I ended up not being terrible at it.”
As an undergraduate, Pfeiffer was on the 2014 National Champion Meat Animal Evaluation team and named to both the meat and livestock judging All-American teams. But it wasn’t the awards and titles Pfeiffer treasured.
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“One, I liked the science, but two, I really liked the people,” she remembers.
That train of thought convinced her this was the industry she wanted to call home. After graduating with bachelor’s degrees in animal science and agricultural communications, Pfeiffer continued her journey at OSU for the next five years, completing a master’s and Ph.D. program in meat science. The extended stay also allowed her to serve as assistant coach for the meat judging team.
“I gained so much from coaching outside of coaching,” she explains. “There was the opportunity to grow as a mentor—to learn these things work and these things don’t when you’re teaching people.”
All the efforts paid off. Beyond developing lifelong friendships and hitting new levels of personal development, three out of the five teams she helped coach were recognized nationally.
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“I don’t think there was really a moment that compared to those days we were named national champions,” she admits.
When she graduated for the third time in 2019, Pfeiffer tried her hand in roles at two different associations. Though she loved the companies and her coworkers, something was missing.
Attending weddings of former students reminded her of the strength of her OSU relationships. Phone calls from former members of judging teams she had coached reinforced her desire to play a role in helping others succeed.
When a position came open at her alma mater in 2020, Pfeiffer knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to return to academia.
“I just wanted to get back to teaching,” she said. “That’s what I really missed. It’s the moments that (the students) succeed that make it really rewarding for me.”
Marks of a mentor
In 2022, she watched proudly as one of her first master’s students, Dani LeDonne, completed her thesis paper.
“I think that was one of the most exciting days for me, was the day she defended her thesis,” Pfeiffer admits. “Just to see the growth that she had, but then also I pushed her so hard to do something that no one had ever done.”
Instead of brushing aside Pfeiffer’s original suggestions for the project, the student put her “heart and soul into making sure it worked.” And that’s the sweetest thing for Pfeiffer.
“I just want to continue to be an influence in people’s lives,” Pfeiffer said. “Whether it continues to be on the research side or on the teaching side.”
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Mentorship is a talent that comes naturally to Pfeiffer, says Emily Rice. Rice met Pfeiffer when she was a meat science undergraduate student at OSU. After signing up for the meat judging class, Rice joined the judging team.
Her origin story is ironically familiar. “All first semester, I guess I wasn’t really a standout, to be honest,” she said. “I was just kind of a person on the team.”
Pfeiffer encouraged her to stay on and keep practicing. Rice took the advice and found herself joining seven other teammates at National Western. Rice competed as usual, and then was shocked when the results were announced. “In the banquet, my name got called, and I looked around and thought, ‘There has to be another Emily Rice here.’ From then on, I guess I realized I wasn’t that bad at meat judging.”
Her career on the team was marked by national and international titles, wins Rice happily credits to Pfeiffer’s leadership.
Rice can name memory after memory of time spent with Pfeiffer in the meat locker, the classroom and even off campus. Their personalities seemed to click, and Rice is proud to call her former coach a lifelong friend.
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“Morgan is incredibly kind, incredibly smart and incredibly driven and talented in whatever she does,” Rice added.
Though it was her encouragement that helped Rice decide to further her education at both Kansas and Colorado State University after graduating from OSU, Pfeiffer said she never shies away from telling others to chase their dreams—whether that leads them away from academia or down a nontraditional career path.
“I would never discourage someone from going into any type of ag career. I think we need people at every sector to make sure we continue to feed the world,” Pfeiffer explained. “I am a big advocate for whatever you do in life. We need students with knowledge in ag and meat science to be lawyers and doctors and politicians, etc., because we need to have a voice in all of those rooms.”
Number driven, producer focused
As a researcher, Pfeiffer approaches every day in the lab with the goal of creating a better world. Most of her work at OSU focuses on sustainability—to make products that are better and last longer, she explained.
New projects are developed by everyday experiences, she adds. When Pfeiffer and her colleagues do something as simple as go to the grocery store, they leave with new questions.
Why did a consumer choose that product? Will the way a meat product thaws affect its color once it’s cooked? Does the type of packaging affect a consumer’s experience?
Recently, Pfeiffer’s work has been centered around the beef industry. A highlight has been working with the National Beef Quality Audit. It was a project that started during her Ph.D. program and extended into her time as faculty, but watching the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association start to roll out data has been one of Pfeiffer’s most rewarding experiences, she said.
Additionally, she’s reunited with former mentors Gretchen Mafi and Ranjith Ramanathan to explore meat color. Pfeiffer labels Ramanathan as the biochemical expert while Mafi’s focus falls to packaging.
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“My specific focus would be more on the consumer side,” she added.
Together, they’re looking at different points that consumers prefer to purchase meat, based on visual appearance and other preferences. It’s a topic that might not sound thrilling to producers at first, but finding new ways to present consumer research data to cattlemen has become a challenge she’s eager to take on.
“I think research can be overwhelming. I think a lot of that can be how we present the data when we’re finished. I enjoy being able to share our findings with our producers and people in the industry and make sure they’re understanding what they’re doing,” she explained. “Just knowing that you’re helping other people make their programs more successful in the long run is a big thing.”
Having a background rooted in the industry is a bit of a secret weapon, too.
“I’m involved in production agriculture, so I know the value of what the producers are doing,” Pfeiffer said. “I think it makes it a little bit easier to talk to those groups because it impacts my life still.”
Pfeiffer and her husband, Kelsey, raise their daughters, Klara and Kirby on a farm that’s home to cows, sheep and goats. Being a mother has created a new sense of determination in Pfeiffer to help preserve the western lifestyle and ag industry.
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“Ultimately, I hope that we will have this industry for the next generations to be involved in. I hope at the end of the day, we’re instilling in people how important ag is to everyone and how important meat is to everyone,” Pfeiffer said. But most importantly, she added, “I hope to raise my daughters to be successful citizens, to be contributing to society in the long run.”
The bits of advice she shares with students are ones she will offer to Klara and Kirby as they grow up: find what makes you happy, embrace your unique talents, don’t be afraid to take on big tasks.
It turns out, no matter what hat she’s wearing, Pfeiffer’s got the kind of attitude that others admire.
“I’ve seen Morgan through a lot of phases in life,” Rice said. “From a master’s student to a mother, I don’t think you could have chosen a more deserving person to feature.”
