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Erica L. Macon, MS, PAS, PhD

Assistant Professor of Equine Science
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas, United States

Erica L. Macon, M.S., P.A.S., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Equine Science in the Department of Animal Science, where she teaches graduate equine nutrition and equine health and disease for undergraduate students. In addition to teaching, Dr. Macon serves as the faculty advisor for the Horsemen’s Association at Texas A&M University. Dr. Macon is an agricultural enthusiast and grew up showing livestock (swine and beef cattle) in 4-H. Dr. Macon received her bachelor’s in animal science from the University of Florida where she took part in determining ammonia output volumes from horses fed different concentrations of protein. For her master’s and Ph.D., however, she focused on equine nutritional endocrinology – more specifically equine metabolic syndrome or insulin dysregulation. Her dissertation serves as the foundation for nutritional recommendations for horses with insulin dysregulation associated with metabolic syndrome. In fact, parts of her dissertation have been cited as the most clinically relevant articles by the Equine Veterinary Education Journal. Upon completion of her Ph.D., Dr. Macon completed ~1.5 years of post-doctoral training in endocrinology at the College of Medicine at the University of Kentucky (UK). During her time as a postdoc, Dr. Macon investigated the effects of FDA-approved drugs on the sympathoadrenal response in Type 1 Diabetic rodents to develop therapies for people who suffer from Type 1 Diabetes. Additionally, Dr. Macon utilized human clinical data to develop an improved method to identify a common complication of Type 1 and severe Type 2 diabetes, hypoglycemia unawareness. At TAMU, Dr. Macon investigates what leads to impaired insulin signaling in the endocrine diseased equid. Her primary focus is the development of improved diagnostics and therapies that have the potential to elucidate the mechanisms behind hyperinsulinemia-associated laminitis.

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