Presentation Title: The AI-Assisted Animal Scientist: Strategies to Use LLMs Without Letting LLMs Use You
Because of her interest in fiction writing, Dr. Hansen started dabbling with LLMs as soon as they came out. She's watched the models change, and watched how students, faculty, nutritionists, and producers use them. One of her earliest observations still holds: you need to be very good at a skill before you can trust an AI output completely. Hallucinations are mostly gone now, but mistakes still linger. This presentation will cover strategies for using LLMs to support multiple aspects of animal nutrition, from visualizing big data to outlining, refining, and getting feedback on writing. She'll share what she sees as the biggest challenge (hello, deskilling) and the biggest opportunity (so much data to analyze), how she talks with her grad students about developing their own ethical boundaries around AI use, and why she started making sure she has at least one day a week where AI is completely off limits.
Stephanie Hansen is the Tyrone D. Artz Professor in the Department of Animal Science
at Iowa State University. An Iowa native, she earned her B.S. from Iowa State and her
M.S. and Ph.D. from North Carolina State University. With over 110 peer-reviewed
publications she has established an original and impactful beef cattle research program. A
major focus of her program is the refinement of mineral requirements for feedlot cattle.
Dr. Hansen is passionate about training the next generation of animal scientists and in
2025 published The Graduate Mentor’s Trail Map to help other faculty on their
mentoring journey. She teaches courses in animal nutrition, ruminant nutrition, and
micronutrient metabolism. She raises Angus cows and enjoys hiking, photography and
writes crime thrillers set in national parks as S. L. Hansen.
