Scientific Advisory Committee

Maria Camila Ceballos is an Associate Professor in Animal Welfare and Behavior at the Department of Production Animal Health of the University of Calgary. She is an Animal Scientist from the National University of Colombia, completed her master’s and Ph.D. at the São Paulo State University, Brazil, followed by a post-doctoral position at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Her main research fields are the evaluation of animal welfare and behavior, mostly in animal production systems, human-animal interaction, and animal personality.

Dr. Jen-Yun Chou is a research scientist at the Prairie Swine Centre and adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is leading the ethology and welfare group at the Centre, which has a close working relationship with the swine industry in Canada. Her background is multidisciplinary at the interface of applied animal behavior, welfare and social science. She has experience working as an animal welfare advisor at international non-profit organizations and has conducted research at various research institutes across Europe and North America. Her research projects collaboratively explore issues surrounding ending painful piglet procedures and providing pigs of all stages with a better physical and social environment.

Cathy is head of the Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research Team at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) in Edinburgh since 2011. Since 2016, Professor Cathy Dwyer is also the Director of the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh. The Centre provides animal welfare education for veterinarians, and other groups, in the UK and overseas, particularly in Asia, and seeks to improve the lives of animals through veterinary education. The work if the research team at SRUC addresses animal welfare problems and seeks solutions for all the major farmed species, and is one of the largest animal welfare research groups in Europe. Cathy’s research interests include maternal behaviour, offspring development and neonatal survival, pain and welfare of animals kept in extensive management conditions. Her work spans fundamental understanding of the biology of behavior and stress to application in the field where she works closely with advisors and consultants to provide solutions to welfare problems. She has been involved in several interdisciplinary and participative research projects, which have engaged with farmers and other stakeholders to co-construct the project, address welfare problems, and develop on farm solutions derived bottom-up. In 2013, Cathy was awarded the BSAS/RSPCA award for outstanding contribution to animal welfare, and she is a member of the EU Animal Welfare Platform. She teaches on the MSc programmes in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare, and the online programme in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law, and is currently supervising 7 PhD students, addressing welfare issues in sheep and horses.

Marisa Erasmus is an associate professor and extension specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences at Purdue University. She received her BS and MS degrees from the University of Guelph in Canada and her PhD from Michigan State University. Before starting her career at Purdue university, Marisa worked on a commercial turkey farm and for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Since then, Marisa’s applied research has focused on developing animal-based measures of welfare for laying hens, turkeys and ducks and examining the effects of environmental and management factors on poultry welfare. In addition to her involvement with the commercial poultry industry, her extension and outreach activities are aimed at educating the public about animal welfare.

Dr. Caroline Lee, a Senior Principal Research Scientist working in Animal Behavior and Welfare, endeavors to enhance animal welfare for the benefit of animals, livestock industries, and to align with public expectations. Dr. Lee's research is dedicated to advancing novel methods for assessing animal welfare. Her primary interests lie in developing practical techniques for evaluating emotional states in animals and assessing the welfare implications of emerging technologies such as virtual fencing systems for cattle and sheep. Her research focuses on various areas including: Assessing the welfare impact of virtual fencing on cattle and sheep,
integration of AI and computer vision for automated assessment of animal welfare, and development of welfare assurance programs

Ruth C. Newberry is a researcher and teacher of animal behavior and welfare in the Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. After growing up on a farm outside Ottawa, Canada, she moved to Scotland to study biology at the University of Edinburgh. It was there that she obtained her PhD based on detailed observations of social interactions among pigs living in a semi-natural environment, the “Edinburgh Pig Park.” She subsequently held positions at the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre in Canada, and at Washington State University in the USA, before moving to Norway in 2013. Ruth’s research is focused on behavioural development, environmental enrichment and play behavior. She and her students have conducted studies involving a broad variety of animals including chickens, turkeys, pigs, goats and salmon, within the theme of providing “animal lives worth living”. Ruth is a past President of the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE), the leading professional association for scientists who use knowledge gained from the study of animal behavior to improve animal welfare. She is a recipient of the Poultry Science Association’s Poultry Welfare Research Award and the ISAE’s Creativity Award. Current projects include environmental enrichment for broiler chickens, positive emotions in pigs and personality and behavioral plasticity of dogs.

Employed at Scotland’s Rural College as a poultry behaviour and welfare scientist since 2001, Vicky’s work focuses on housing and management of laying hens, broilers, and broiler breeders. Most of Vicky’s work is based in research, but she also supervises at PhD level (3 completed students, 2 in progress, 2 to begin in October 2019), is Director of the MSc in Applied Poultry Science at the University of Edinburgh, and gives guest lectures on other MSc and BSc courses. She is also on the board of the British Poultry Science journal, former president of the World’s Poultry Science Association – UK branch, and former president of the International Society for Applied Ethology.

Dr. Sutherland completed her Master’s at Massey University, studying pain management for dehorning calves and castrating and tail docking lambs. She earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois, focusing on breed effects on stress and disease in pigs. Mhairi then spent three years at Texas Tech University researching pig welfare issues. Returning to New Zealand in 2009, she worked as a scientist at AgResearch before joining B+LNZ in 2020. As Senior Scientist in Animal Health and Welfare Research, Mhairi leads projects on ewe and lamb survival, ectoparasites, early disease detection, and animal welfare. She also manages the Hill Country Futures program and contributes to various research initiatives.

Dr. Abbie Viscardi is an Assistant Professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University (KSU). She received her BSc and PhD degrees from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. She joined the faculty at KSU and established the Animal Welfare program in 2018. Her research program is focused on assessing and managing pain in livestock species. She aims to better understand how animals express and communicate pain and determine how we can effectively alleviate pain associated with routine husbandry procedures (e.g., surgical castration, tail docking, and disbudding). She is most interested in using non-invasive techniques to assess pain, such as behaviour and facial grimace analysis. She developed a Piglet Grimace Scale and Goat Grimace Scale and continues to refine and validate these tools in her research program. She also teaches two animal welfare courses that are part of the DVM curriculum.

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. In 1997, he co-founded UBC’s Animal Welfare Program and co-directs this active research group. Dan’s research focuses on developing behavioural measures for the objective assessment of animal welfare and developing practical methods of improving the welfare of animals. Dan’s work on dairy cattle focuses on housing and management of dairy calves and cows. His work has helped lead to the changes in feeding practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations) and housing methods (including the adoption of pair and small group rearing for pre-weaned calves). Work on cows has focused on improved comfort (especially in stall design and management), and how the changes can benefit cow health (especially lameness). Dan’s experimental work is based at the UBC’s state-of-the-art Dairy Education and Research Centre, located in the heart of the BC dairy industry in Agassiz, BC. Much of Dan’s recent work also takes place on commercial farms, helping to ground results in commercial practice, and acting as a direct conduit for knowledge sharing between researchers and innovative dairy producers. Dan has authored 100’s of publication and is a frequent and enthusiastic speaker for dairy and professional audiences.