Alireza Bayat

Tell us about yourself.
My name is Alireza Bayat and I am from Iran. I received my BSc in animal science from Tehran University in 1997, and a PhD in ruminant nutrition from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2007. I did part of my PhD studies at MTT, Finland 2005-2007 focusing on digestion and passage kinetics of fibre. After the dissertation, I started my career as an assistant professor at Shiraz University from 2007-2011, before I moved to MTT as a post doctoral researcher to work mainly on the RuminOmics project. My research interest mainly focuses on the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from ruminants especially dairy cows using both open circuit respiratory calorimeters and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) tracer technique.

What is your role in RuminOmics?
I have managed and been in charge of constructing and running four respiratory chambers to be used for methane measurements in RuminOmics. I am the responsible person for running two out of four RuminOmics experiments conducted at MTT from 2012 to 2014.

What interested you most about the project?
I am interested to learn about relationship between animal phenotype and rumen microbiome especially the methanogens in addition to the host control over microbiome.

What and/or who inspired you to make a career in science
My biology teacher in high school and my cousin, who is now a PhD in microbiology, were the main persons to inspire me to make a career in science.

What do you enjoy most about the work?
Something that I enjoy most about the work is to do novel research included in the project including getting phenotypic results such as methane production or digestibility from cows and connecting them to the ruminal microbial ecology using state of art techniques. In addition, working in collaboration with international partners inspires me very well.

Did you have any other career aspirations?
One of my main aspirations is to contribute to the science with publishing good quality scientific papers.