The following is an edited version of a speech given at Professor Mingan Choct’s farewell dinner by UNE Professor in Animal Science, Animal Health and Veterinary Sciences, Steve Walkden-Brown. The dinner was held as a special function at the Sheraton Hyde Park, Sydney, during the 2023 Australian Poultry Science Symposium. It was organised by UNE Professor Shubiao Wu and funded largely by poultry industry sponsorship. About 100 people were in attendance.
Mingan joined UNE as a lecturer in Poultry Nutrition in mid 1995. Before coming to UNE he completed his PhD with Prof. Frank Annison at the University of Sydney in 1992, followed by a period at CSIRO in South Australia as a carbohydrate chemist.
Mingan brought huge amount of energy and passion to the ANSC group at UNE – he was an excellent lecturer and worked hard to build up poultry research and teaching at UNE, including a dynamic period as leader of PRATU, the poultry research and teaching unit.
Within eight years of coming to UNE as a Lecturer he was a full Professor, and was then the engine room in founding the Australian Poultry CRC in July 2003. He was the CEO of the CRC for its entire 14 years – a testament to his skills as a scientist, innovator and leader. These skills were on display post-CRC as he contributed to the development of the Poultry Hub Australia at UNE and embraced the role of Pro Vice-Chancellor for External Relations.
Through out this time Mingan continued to be a very active research academic and maintained strong links with the Animal Science discipline at UNE, for which he has been a great champion.
He was instrumental in helping develop some great poultry research facilities for the University including layer facilities at Laureldale farm, the Rob Cumming Research Facility at Kirby Smart Farm and the Net Energy chicken calorimeters at CART, while breaking new ground in his research. His work included addressing the problem of new season wheats and non-starch polysaccharides in reducing gut function and productivity in chickens; developing widely adopted chicken and pig models for important poultry and human gut health problems such as necrotic enteritis; standardising carbohydrate analyses; and developing new systems for assessing net energy utilisation by chickens.
Mingan’s metrics as an academic are awesome. He has won numerous scientific awards and prizes throughout his career, and supervised or co-supervised more than 50 higher degree research students – many of them in this room – and published over 400 papers. His profile on Google Scholar carries over 15,000 citations.
Metrics only tell part of the story of this outstanding person though. To go with his obvious intelligence, drive and ambition Mingan has all the good traits of worldliness, curiosity, compassion, empathy and attention to detail that have made him a superb leader and mentor for the people he has worked with. Not to mention a devilish sense of humour and a Mongolian or Chinese saying for every situation.
Throughout his career he has mentored countless research students, junior researchers and support staff with care and humility, for which he is widely acknowledged and admired.
Mingan Choct was made a UNE Emeritus Professor in 2023. The following is a summary of his achievements, drawn from the citation.