John Shutske
Position title: Professor and Agricultural Safety & Health Specialist
Email: john.shutske@wisc.edu
Website: Agricultural Safety and Health Research and Extension Program
Phone: 608-514-2504
Address:
B-35 Agricultural Engineering Building
460 Henry Mall
Madison, WI 53706

Twitter: @WIAgLeader
Program Affiliations
- Professor in Biological Systems Engineering
- Extension Agricultural Safety & Health Specialist
- School of Medicine & Public Health (SMPH) Professor in Family Medicine (Affiliate)
- Adjunct Professor, University of Illinois, Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE)
Education and Certificates
- B.S. 1983 – Agricultural Mechanization, Purdue University
- M.S. 1984 – Agricultural Mechanization, Purdue University, Modeling of Specialty Crop Machinery Systems
- Ph.D. 1988 – Agricultural Engineering, Purdue University, Agricultural Machinery Safety
Fields of Interest
- Safety engineering and education related to occupational and public health hazards in agricultural and food systems
- Multidisciplinary approaches for solving complex risk-related problems
- Risk assessment of highly-automated agricultural machines including autonomous and robot applications and platforms
- Stress, mental health, human factors and the connection to farm injury and worker health
Teaching
- BSE 508: Biological Systems Engineering Senior Design (2017-2021, now team adviser only)
- BSE 509: Capstone Senior Design (team adviser)
- BSE 308: Career Management for Engineers
- Several Extension programs connected to agricultural technology, safety and human health
Publications
- Shutske, JM, Sandner, K, Jamieson, Z. (2023) Risk Assessment Methods for Autonomous Agricultural Machines: Review of Current Practices and Future Needs. Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 39(1): 109-120. https://doi.org/10.13031/aea.15281
- Shutske, J. M. (2023). Harnessing the Power of Large Language Models in Agricultural Safety & Health. Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health. In-press. https://doi.org/10.13031/jash.15841
- Shutske, JM. (2023). Agricultural automation & autonomy: safety and risk assessment must be at the forefront.” Journal of Agromedicine. 28(1), 5-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/1059924X.2022.2147625
- de Campos, J.L., Gonçalves, J.L., Kates, A., Steinberger, A., Sethi, A., Suen, G., Shutske, J., Safdar, N., Goldberg, T. and Ruegg, P.L., 2023. Variation in Partial Direct Costs of Treating Clinical Mastitis among 37 Wisconsin Dairy Farms. Journal of Dairy Science. In Press.
- Morris, G., Ehlers, S., & Shutske, J. (2023). US Small-Scale Livestock Operation Approach to Biosecurity. Agriculture, 13(11), 2086.
- Cuthbertson, Courtney, Alison Brennan, John Shutske, John Leatherman, Andrea Bjornestad, Lori Zierl, Katelyn Macy et al. “An Effective Mental Health Literacy Program for Farm Financial Service Providers.” Journal of Agromedicine (2023): 1-9.
- Drewry JL, Shutske JM, Trechter D, Luck BD. (2022). Assessment of digital technology adoption and access barriers among agricultural service providers and agricultural extension professionals. Journal of the ASABE. 65(5): 1049-1059. Published open source.
- Gonçalves, J. L., de Campos, J. L., Steinberger, A. J., Safdar, N., Kates, A., Sethi, A., Shutske, J., Suen, G., Goldberg, T., Cue, R.I. and Ruegg, P.L. (2022). Incidence and Treatments of Bovine Mastitis and Other Diseases on 37 Dairy Farms in Wisconsin. Pathogens, 11(11): 1282. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11111282
- Cuthbertson C, Brennan A, Shutske J, Zierl L, Bjornestad A, Macy K, Schallhorn P, Shelle G, Dellifield J, Leatherman J, Lin E. (2022). Developing and implementing farm stress training to address agricultural producer mental health. Health Promotion Practice. 2022 Jan;23(1):8-10.
- Shutske, John M., Kelly J. Sandner, and Zachary Jamieson. “Risk Assessment Methods for Automated Agricultural Machines: Current Practice and Future Needs.” In 2022 ASABE Annual International Meeting, p. 1. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2022.
- Cuthbertson, Courtney, Alison Brennan, John Shutske, Lori Zierl, Andrea Bjornestad, Katelyn Macy, Pam Schallhorn, et al. “Developing and Implementing Farm Stress Training to Address Agricultural Producer Mental Health.” Health Promotion Practice 23, no. 1 (January 2022): 8–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839920931849.
- Weichelt, Bryan, Erika Scott, Rick Burke, John Shutske, Serap Gorucu, Wayne Sanderson, Murray Madsen, Emily Redmond, Dennis J. Murphy, and Risto Rautiainen. “What about the rest of them? Fatal injuries related to production agriculture not captured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI).” Journal of Agromedicine 27, no. 1 (2022): 35-40.
- Kates, Ashley E., Mary Jo Knobloch, Ali Konkel, Amanda Young, Andrew Steinberger, John Shutske, Pamela L. Ruegg et al. “Wisconsin dairy farm worker perceptions and practices related to antibiotic use, resistance, and infection prevention using a systems engineering framework.” PloS one 16, no. 12 (2021): e0258290.
- Weichelt, Bryan, Richard Burke, Emily Redmond, and John Shutske. “Farm Suicides in Wisconsin, 2017–2018: Preliminary Findings and a Call for Future Research.” Safety 7, no. 3 (2021): 51.
- Lundqvist, Peter, Richard Franklin, John Shutske, Kyungsuk Lee, Marcos Grigioni, and Ayman Ekram Fahim. “About Time to Join Forces within Agricultural Health & Safety!?.” Journal of Agromedicine 26, no. 2 (2021): 284-287.
- de Campos, J. Leite, A. Kates, A. Steinberger, A. Sethi, G. Suen, J. Shutske, N. Safdar, T. Goldberg, and P. L. Ruegg. “Quantification of antimicrobial usage in adult cows and preweaned calves on 40 large Wisconsin dairy farms using dose-based and mass-based metrics.” Journal of Dairy Science 104, no. 4 (2021): 4727-4745.
- Drewry, Jessica L., John M. Shutske, David Trechter, Brian D. Luck, and Lynn Pitman. “Assessment of digital technology adoption and access barriers among crop, dairy and livestock producers in Wisconsin.” Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 165 (2019): 104960.
- Shutske, John M., Daniel Schaefer, Rebecca Larson, Kevin Erb, Cheryl Skjolaas, Stephanie Leonard, Jeff Nelson, Elizabeth Binversie, and Scott Rifleman. “Investigation of a worker death while agitating manure in a non-enclosed storage.” Journal of agromedicine 23, no. 1 (2018): 10-19.
- Shutske, J.M., Larson, R.A., Schaefer, D.M., Binversie, E., Rifleman, S., and Skjolaas, C. 2017. Death of a Farm Worker After Exposure to Manure Gas in an Open Air Environment—Wisconsin, August 2016. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 66. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/pdfs/mm6632a6.pdf; (195; 6.94).
Selected Awards and Honors
- ASABE Wisconsin Section Career Achievement Award, recognizes contributions to agricultural and biological engineering through work in research, education, design, and extension. 2023.
- ASABE SMV Technologies Ergonomics, Safety, and Health Award, recognizes outstanding contributions which advance agricultural and biological safety and health. 2022
- Wisconsin Agri-Business Association, Outstanding Service to Industry Award. 2017
- UW-Extension Chancellor’s Award, recognizing exceptional teaching, outreach, collaborations and public service of both UW Colleges and UW-Extension employees, as well as valued partners and supporters. 2016
- ASABE Superior Paper Award, presented to nominees with peer-reviewed journal articles deemed to be in the top 2.5% of those published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. 2007.
- University of Minnesota Star Faculty Award – Given to top 5% of UMN faculty based on performance in research, education, service and outreach. 2006
- Nolan Mitchell Young Extension Worker Award for outstanding contributions to agricultural safety and health. Presented by ASAE. 1998.
- Dean and Director’s Distinguished Diversity and Inclusion Award for the Minnesota AgrAbility Project and Minnesota Migrant Health Promoter Project. 1996.
Expertise Summary
My Extension, research, and teaching activity focuses on safety engineering, risk assessment and control, and health promotion in agriculture and other industries. My Extension program leadership role allows me to develop research-based educational programs and curricula with colleagues across the state and across the country. The programs are intended to prevent injury, illness, and other types of loss and to mitigate the related negative impacts from farm stress. Historically, I have worked across CALS disciplines (farm management, animal science, bacteriology) in agriculture as well as veterinary medicine, public health, epidemiology, medicine, mental health, and program evaluation. I hold an affiliate Professor appointment in Family Medicine in the School of Medicine and Public Health and have worked to expand agriculture’s connections to the Wisconsin Academy of Rural Medicine and the Rural Health Equity program track.
I serve as Chair of the NCERA-197 Agricultural Safety and Health Research and Extension national committee. Our group recently published comprehensive national report that documentS the work of members across the U.S. (including Wisconsin) during a RECENT five-year period. In total, national summary outcomes for this group included: program leadership generating $45 million in competitive program and research support; partnering with organizations such as the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health, and Canadian Agricultural Safety Association; training and professional development programs for 300,000 farmers, ranchers, and hired workers; and publication of a comprehensive report on confined spaces and grain bins injuries. The full NCERA-197 impact report is at: https://uwmadison.box.com/v/NCERA197Report2015-2020
As a researcher, we recently wrapped up a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary project (dairy science, biological systems engineering, epidemiology, bacteriology, veterinary medicine, infection control and medicine) focused on the health and safety of workers in the dairy industry. Our team focuses on the roles and risk factors among dairy farm workers with a focus on infection control and antibiotic resistance. We employed an engineering-based systems approach that includes methods and frameworks being deployed in healthcare-based infection control. On another project, in 2022-23, we made important progress on research to quantify risk associated with new driverless, automated, robotic, and other novel agricultural equipment. This work will lead to new engineering design standards and best practices for those who design, insure, regulate, and use new machinery forms such as autonomous tractors, harvesters, robots, and other field and farmstead equipment. We have assembled a planning committee with industry engineers, the equipment manufacturer’s main association, funding agencies, standards experts, and safety experts and hope to convene a national conference in 2022 to advance policy recommendations and a comprehensive set of research questions to form the basis for new funding initiatives.
In 2021, we also began the work of “FarmWell Wisconsin,” a $1 million Wisconsin Partnership Program (WPP) grant funded through a large endowment of the WPP. FarmWell includes the community partner—Southwest Community Action Program as well as UW’s Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies. I am the UW’s academic lead on this project, spending about 10% of my time on the project focused on developing a comprehensive set of programs that promote health, well-being, and mental health among farmers. This project also led to an additional $114,000 in USDA funding in 2021 to support development of a highly focused program for farmers titled WeCope which was unveiled and fully evaluated in 2023.
In the classroom, I taught our engineering design process course (BSE 508) for five years. I completed my role as lead in that class in May 2021. I continue to advise student teams as part of the capstone design courses (BSE 508 and 509), and in 2021 led a team that developed a thermocouple-based, early fire detection and prediction system for grain combines. In 2022 and 2023, my teams worked on a measurement and control system for “home coffee roasters”—a growing hobby, but one that involves complex physical and chemical prcesses that need to be carefully monitored for optimal product control and process safety. Moving into 2024, I will continue to lead our BSE 308 – Career Management for Engineers class for the BSE department and other College of Engineering undergraduates. I have developed a BSE 308 YouTube channel that provides access to original class materials, and these are increasingly being accessed and used both in other classroom and outreach settings nationally and internationally.