Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
December 22, 2015Location: Withycombe Hall, Oregon State University.
Fred Stormshak (b. 1936) is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Animal Sciences who was a member of the OSU faculty from 1968 to his retirement in 2001. Stormshak spent much of his career at Oregon State studying the ovary and uterus of the domestic animal, with particular attention paid to the functioning of the corpus luteum, an ephemeral and short-lived gland that plays a crucial role in the reproductive process. In 1996, he and a colleague began a program of research on the biological basis of male-oriented behavior in rams; work that eventually made headlines around the world. Funded by the NIH and continuing to this day, the studies have focused on a group of neurons in the anterior hypothalamus that may play a crucial role in the scientific understanding of sexual behavior in sheep. Stormshak's interview details his upbringing in rural Washington; his education in Dairy Science and Endocrinology; the broad array of research that he has conducted at OSU; and his institutional memories of Animal Sciences at OSU.