Dr. Amy Batal is currently an assistant professor of poultry nutrition at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on alternative or new feed ingredients and by –products, amino acid requirements and digestibility, gastrointestinal tract development, gut microflora populations and immune function.  However, over the past four years at Georgia her work has focused primarily on amino acid digestibility and the evaluation of alterative feed ingredients such as distillers dried grains with solubles.  Dr. Batal received her B.S. in animal science from California Polytechnic State University, her M. S. in animal nutrition from Iowa State University and her Ph.D. in animal nutrition from University of Illinois.  She also conducted a short post-doc at the University of Illinois with Drs. Parsons and Baker.