St. Paul, Minn.—Kaydance Hinn, a first-year student at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, received the 2025 Morrison Swine Innovator Prize, an award given to veterinary students who want to make a difference in swine health and production.
The award was presented on September 22 at the annual Allen D. Leman Swine Conference hosted by the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). All North American veterinary students interested in swine health and production were eligible.
Hinn was chosen for this award by a jury of swine practitioners for her presentation, “An estimation cost calculator to assess the economic impacts of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae disease.” Hinn did her work under Dr. Maria Pieters at the University of Minnesota’s Mycoplasma Research Laboratory.
“The jury was very impressed by Kaydance’s self-taught skills regarding coding and website design” says Dr. Perle Zhitnitskiy, the CVM professor who coordinates the Morrison Swine Innovator Prize. “They appreciated that her project resulted in tangible outcomes in the form of a calculator that is available for all swine producers to use. You could tell she had great ownership of her project and carried it from beginning to end.”
Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae is a bacterium that causes pneumonia and other significant respiratory issues in pigs in the United States and around the world. Estimating the cost of Mycoplasma in a swine production company is a first step in quantifying the real effect the pathogen causes, as it tends to be underestimated or masked. The calculator is available now with the intention of providing a simple way to estimate the cost of Mycoplasma disease on a swine farm.
“Elimination protocols have been proven successful and continue to maintain a negative status even in pig-dense areas,” Hinn told Farm Journal’s PORK. “While these values are not exact, this calculator can help inform producers of possible opportunity losses that can be further discussed with their veterinarian. This information will aid in realizing the potential loss that M. hyopneumoniae is contributing to at their farm, and encourage producers to take the next steps in helping Minnesota eradicate M. hyopneumoniae.”
Read more about Hinn’s work on Farm Journal’s PORK.