The Early Career Animal Welfare Researcher of the Year Award recognises the achievements of early career scientists (who are within 6 years of obtaining their PhD) who have made significant contributions to improving the welfare of animals.
2026 Award Winners
Dr Heather Browning
Dr Heather Browning is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK. She completed her PhD in Philosophy at the Australian National University, focusing on the assessment of animal welfare, and her work now spans animal welfare science, ethics, and the study of consciousness. Drawing on both academic research and earlier experience as a zookeeper and zoo animal welfare officer, her work aims to improve how animal welfare is understood and assessed across species.
Dr Browning has contributed significantly to UK policy through her role in the DEFRA-commissioned review of sentience in cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans, which informed their inclusion under the UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. She is also the coauthor of What Are Zoos For? a concise exploration of the role and future of modern zoos. Dr Browning is recognised for her innovative, interdisciplinary approach and her growing impact on both the science and ethics of animal welfare.
In response to receiving the award, Dr Browning said:
“I am honoured to receive this award. As a philosopher working on animal welfare and sentience, I have been continually heartened by the positive reception my work has received in the welfare science community, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of animal welfare research and its many applications. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities I have been given for participation and collaboration, and for the support and guidance I have received along the way.”
Dr Huw Golledge added:
“We are delighted to recognise Dr Browning as a joint recipient of the 2026 UFAW Early Career Animal Welfare Researcher of the Year Award. Her innovative, interdisciplinary approach – bridging philosophy, welfare science and ethics – has already made a meaningful contribution to policy, including informing the UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. At UFAW we believe that advancing animal welfare requires exactly this kind of thinking, and Heather’s work embodies that. I very much look forward to hearing both her and Professor von Keyserlingk speak at the UFAW International Animal Welfare Conference 2026.”
Dr Sarah Adcock
Dr Sarah Adcock is Assistant Professor in Animal Welfare in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Her research focuses on improving the understanding and mitigation of pain and disease in livestock, integrating animal welfare science into sustainable food production, and supporting understudied food systems such as dairy sheep and insect farming.
Dr Adcock has already made significant contributions to applied animal welfare science through innovative work that has helped shape more humane husbandry practices. She also leads pioneering research on welfare in insect farming, directing a USDA-funded interdisciplinary project on black soldier fly larvae to support the ethical development of this rapidly expanding sector. With a strong publication record, substantial research support, and a clear commitment to applying robust science to real world challenges, she is helping shape the future direction of welfare-focused food systems. A committed proponent of open science, she champions data sharing, replicability, and stringency in scientific methods.
In response to receiving this award, Dr Adcock said:
“I’m truly honoured to receive this award. As UFAW celebrates its centennial year, it’s especially meaningful to be recognised by an organisation that has long been a leader in advancing animal welfare. I’m very grateful for the guidance and support I’ve received from exceptional mentors and colleagues, and for the dedicated students who help drive the research forward. I feel privileged to be part of such a supportive community and I’m excited to keep contributing to a field where rigorous science can drive real improvements in animals’ lives.”
Dr Huw Golledge concluded:
“We are equally delighted to recognise Dr Adcock as a joint recipient of this award. Her research spans an impressive range – from improving pain and disease management in livestock to pioneering welfare standards in emerging sectors like insect farming. What stands out is her commitment to ensuring that rigorous, open science drives real change in how animals are cared for, which is very much in the spirit of what UFAW seeks to support. We look forward to seeing the continued impact of her work in the years ahead.”
2025 Award Winner
Dr Benjamin Lecorps
The recipient of the UFAW Early Career Researcher of the Year Award 2025 was Dr Benjamin Lecorps, a lecturer in Animal Welfare, Ethics and Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Bristol. He holds a PhD in Applied Animal Biology from the University of British Columbia.
Dr Lecorps is dedicated to using robust scientific methods to improve the welfare of captive animals. His research primarily focuses on better understanding the affective (emotional) experiences of animals, particularly dairy cattle, when subjected to routine farm procedures such as disbudding and feed restrictions.
Additionally, Dr Lecorps is interested in exploring how policymakers regulate farm practices to meet public demands for higher welfare standards. He believes that improving animal welfare is a necessary step toward achieving more sustainable agricultural practices. To this end, his research also considers broader sustainability challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, and explores strategies for improving animal welfare while simultaneously addressing these global issues through win-win solutions.
In response to receiving the award, Dr Lecorps said:
“I am truly honoured to receive this year’s UFAW Early Career Animal Welfare Researcher of the Year Award! The journey to my current role required some perseverance, but every challenge along the way was absolutely worth it. Working to improve the lives of captive animals is both a humbling and deeply rewarding responsibility—one that constantly inspires me. I feel incredibly fortunate to collaborate with amazing students and colleagues and to have had the guidance of exceptional mentors, including Profs Marina von Keyserlingk, Dan Weary, Mike Mendl, and Christophe Féron. Their support has shaped my path, and I’m excited for what’s ahead in the pursuit of better animal welfare!”
Dr Huw Golledge concluded:
“I’m delighted that Ben has been awarded this year’s Early Career Animal Welfare Researcher of the Year award. In just a few years Ben has established himself as an emerging leader in the field. His dedication to employing rigorous and innovative approaches to understand and ultimately improve the affective states of farmed animals embodies the use of Science in the Service of Animal Welfare which UFAW seeks to support. I look forward to hearing both Professor Beausoleil and Dr Lecorps present their work at the UFAW International Animal Welfare Conference 2025 in June.”
2024 Award Winner
Dr Vikki Neville
Dr Neville is the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Discovery Fellow and Proleptic Lecturer at Bristol Veterinary School. She was nominated for the award to recognise her academic excellence, drive and leadership in improving the welfare of laboratory animals.
Dr Neville drives welfare science forward using her groundbreaking skill for developing and applying novel approaches to address important welfare questions. She has diverse research interests, but the bulk of her work focuses on using high quality fundamental science studies that enable us to better understand animal emotion and hence welfare. She has studied a range of companion and laboratory species including starlings, rabbits, and rats.
Beyond her impressive research skills, Dr Neville’s exceptional passion for welfare science is further evidenced in her dedication to mentoring colleagues and students in the use of quantitative approaches to animal welfare issues.
In response to receiving the award, Dr Neville said:
“I’m incredibly honoured to receive this year’s UFAW Early Career Animal Welfare Researcher of the Year Award. It is a joy and privilege to be an animal welfare researcher, and this award is the cherry on top of the cake. I’m hugely grateful to my wonderful colleagues and mentors, particularly Prof. Mike Mendl, Dr Liz Paul, Prof. Peter Dayan and Prof. Iain Gilchrist, for their support and encouragement.”
Dr Huw Golledge concluded:
“We are delighted to be able to recognise the significant impact that Dr Neville has made to the field of animal welfare science so early on in her career. She has already established herself as an accomplished animal welfare scientist whose work has continued positive impact on animal welfare. Her impressive array of skills and passion for welfare science, combined with her dedication to supporting her peers make her a truly worthy recipient of the ECR award.
2023 Award Winners
Dr Sara Hintze
Sara is an Assistant Professor in Animal Welfare Science at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria. Sara was nominated for the award to recognise her impressive scholastic activities and commitment to teaching in the classroom, her research mentoring on farms, and her contributions to public education and outreach within the field of animal welfare.
Through her work, Sara approaches contemporary issues related to animals’ affective states in unique ways. During her PhD, Sara took the concept of Judgement Bias and successfully developed a novel cross-species paradigm for the assessment of emotion in animals. In her current work on animal boredom, she combines behavioural and cognitive approaches translated from human psychology to find out what boredom means for farmed pigs. Furthermore, Sara enjoys working conceptually as shown by her publications on individuality, disenhancement and positive welfare, including flow.
Dr Jordan Hampton
Jordan is a McKenzie Research Fellow in the Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, Australia. His focus is the welfare of wild animals, an emerging field of animal welfare science, in which he has already been highly influential.
Jordan has authored 75 peer-reviewed publications, with his current research focusing on the indirect animal welfare impacts of contaminants such as lead on wildlife. Much of his research to date has been both novel and applied, fostering collaboration between animal welfare scientists, wildlife managers and conservationists. This approach has wide-reaching impact outside of academia and has resulted in improvements in wildlife management and regulation in Australia and New Zealand.
Dr Golledge concluded:
“We are delighted to be able to recognise the significant impact that both Dr Hintze and Dr Hampton have made to the field of animal welfare science during their relatively short careers. As well as producing scientifically robust research, both Sara and Jordan champion dissemination to ensure that animal welfare can be improved on a large scale.
2022 Award Winners
Dr Nienke van Staaveren
Dr van Staaveren is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Guelph, Canada. Nienke has worked with various species including pigs, poultry, and, more recently, ruminants to improve the health and welfare of farmed animals. Combining fundamental and applied research methodologies, Nienke provided valuable input to validate the use of carcase tail lesions as iceberg indicators for pigs, to understand underlying mechanisms in the development of feather pecking and keel bone damage in laying hens, and to develop on-farm welfare assessments and management plans to reduce injurious pecking in poultry. More recently, she has been working to identify novel health and welfare traits in turkeys, and to enhance disease resistance in dairy cattle by close collaboration with different industry stakeholders. Nienke has also acted as a mentor in UFAW’s scheme which offers guidance and support to students undertaking their first animal welfare project.
Dr Jessica Martin
Dr Martin is a Senior Lecturer in Physiology and Animal Welfare at the University of Edinburgh. Jessica was nominated for the award for making substantive contributions to farm animal and laboratory animal welfare through research, education, legislative and institutional policy, and real-world impact. Her research to date has focussed on mechanical and gaseous methods of stunning and killing animals on-farm, in processing plants and in the laboratory setting. As part of her PhD, Jessica developed and validated a novel killing device that improved the consistency and humaneness of manual cervical dislocation for poultry, which had worldwide impact.
Dr Golledge concluded:
“Both Dr van Staaveren and Dr Martin impressed the panel with their commitment to improving animal welfare on a large scale, their ability to engage and work with a wide range of stakeholders, and their scientific expertise. They are also both strongly committed to supporting the next generations of scientists through supervision and mentoring of students, something UFAW values highly.
The significant and impactful improvements to animal welfare that both Early Career Researcher of the Year award winners have made during their relatively short careers is nothing short of impressive. I look forward to following their careers as advocates for Science in the Service of Animal Welfare over the coming years”.
2021 Award Winners
Dr Jamie Ahloy Dallaire
Jamie gained a BSc in biology at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. He then began his career in animal welfare research in 2008 with a Masters degree and a PhD in Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research at the University of Guelph, Ontario, and completed his post-doctoral research at Stanford University, California. Since 2018, he has been Assistant Professor of Behaviour and Welfare in Animal Production at Laval University, Quebec, Quebec.
Professor Georgia Mason from the University of Guelph, Canada who nominated Jamie for the award said:
“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Dr Jamie Ahloy Dallaire for twelve years, working as his MSc and PhD advisor for seven years, and collaborating with him since then as well. He has an unusual combination of intelligence, originality, independence, initiative, statistical know-how, collegiality and excellent teaching abilities. He is a truly excellent critical thinker, and very widely read. He is curiosity-driven, imaginative, passionate about welfare science and applied ethology. His understanding of animal behaviour and well-being is unusually broad and deep. He is superb at statistics and mathematically gifted… Watching his continued development and upward trajectory as a post-doc and young faculty member has thus been a real pleasure … he really deserves this award.”
While only five years post PhD, Jamie already has 24 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and a faculty position. He has conducted practical work on enrichment for farmed mink and serves on the National Farm Animal Care Council’s (NFACC) Mink Code of Practice Amendment Committee. His most important work to date is on the welfare of laboratory mice and how this can be assessed in and affected by their home environment, and on the causes, functions, and welfare significance of play. In addition to his work with NFACC, he also serves with the Canadian Council on Animal Care, sitting on two sub-committees helping to draw up welfare standards for animals used in research and teaching. He is currently working on robustness with respect to welfare in pigs, and on the welfare significance of play in piglets.
Dr Joseph Garner, who supported Jamie’s nomination said:
“Jamie’s intellect and work ethic are remarkable. He brings a deep and considered intellectual perspective to issues in animal behaviour and welfare and has an incredibly rich technical skillset, including an outstanding level of statistical expertise. He has worked with swine, lab, fur, and zoo species, being concept-driven rather than species-focused: a huge strength and one shared with the top names in the field. All this makes him a uniquely valuable talent in the field of animal welfare.”
Dr Jen-Yun Chou
Jen gained her MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare with Distinction at the University of Edinburgh in 2015. She remained at the University of Edinburgh to do her PhD in Clinical Veterinary Sciences, her PhD project being strategies to manage tail biting in pigs housed in fully slatted systems.
Since she completed her PhD, Jen has played a significant role in enabling communication and networking within the animal welfare research community. She spent five months working as a Global Animal Welfare Advisor at World Animal Protection, spending a lot of that time involved in co-ordinating the 3T’s Alliance. This is a voluntary group of experts and stakeholders working collaboratively to explore issues surrounding ending tail docking, teeth reduction and physical/surgical castration in pigs. Since October 2020, she has been undertaking her post doctoral research at the Swine Teaching and Research centre at the University of Pennsylvania.
Her thesis includes five experimental chapters, all published in peer-reviewed journals, and she has published four other papers, with a further four from her time in Teagasc (Agriculture and Food Development Authority, Ireland) and more in preparation. Such an output is hugely impressive given she only completed her PhD in December last year. Jen has also contributed an incredible 19 conference presentations from her PhD, 13 as first author, and was the winner of an early career award at the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) in Croatia 2018.
Jen has attained a huge amount of experience and knowledge in how to optimise pig management in commercial systems, collecting some of her data at commercial units. She presented her work to Irish farmers at a range of producer focused events and wrote articles for various technical and producer-focused magazines and newsletters, to help her work reach the audience where it would have most benefit for the animals.
Jen also helps run the Animal Welfare Slack Workspace, which hosts bi-weekly seminars for early career researchers to present their work. Since it was established in September 2020 it has grown to 720 members and has provided a vital outlet for researchers to network and share knowledge during the pandemic.
Dr Keelin O’Driscoll, Research Officer at Teagasc who nominated Jen for the award said:
“The quality of Jen’s work and enthusiasm have made her a pleasure to work with, and her positive attitude and willingness to help others is much missed since she has left. The past year has demonstrated that Jen is not only a great scientist, but a fantastic science communicator and influencer. She has moved back into active research recently and I am confident will excel again in her new position.”
Dr Rick D’Eath, Reader in Animal Behaviour & Welfare and Dr Dale Sandercock, Senior Researcher in Veterinary Molecular Neurobiology, both of whom were Jen’s supervisors at SRUC said:
“Having supervised, co-supervised and examined a number of PhD students over the years, Jen-Yun stands out among them as being of the highest calibre…Going forward, we are confident that Jen will continue to be a passionate and effective advocate of animal welfare and to make lasting and significant additions to animal welfare research. We believe she has an exciting and influential career ahead of her in animal welfare science.”
Prior to 2021, the award was titled the Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year Award.
2020 Award Winner
Dr Irene Camerlink
Dr Irene Camerlink, Assistant Professor at the Department of Animal Behaviour, Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, was our winner in 2020 in recognition of her exceptional work to improve the welfare of pigs.
Irene said:
“I started with a BSc in Animal Health Care, followed by an MSc in Animal Production Systems (Animal Sciences) at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. This was followed by a PhD at Wageningen University on the behaviour and productivity of pigs selected for Indirect Genetic Effects. Seeing the behavioural abnormalities and welfare problems in practice always motivated me to keep on searching for ways to improve health and welfare through providing a scientific base for potential solutions. Interdisciplinary research combining anima and social sciences is herein a main interest, as interdisciplinary work is in my opinion essential to apply science into practice. More specific research interests are social behaviour of pigs, neurobiology, behavioural genetics, homeopathy, and conflict behaviour.”
On completion of her PhD, Irene moved to Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), where she began as a postdoc researcher on a project on pig aggression with Dr Simon Turner, Senior Researcher in the Animal Behaviour and Welfare Team at SRUC who said: “Irene has been instrumental in supervising work on farmer attitudes, perceptions and willingness-to-pay for welfare benefits. The field of welfare science has rarely interacted with the fields of human behavioural change and agricultural economics. Bringing together these areas is essential. As an academic community, our failure to bring together these fields is at the root of why so many recommendations that ought to improve animal welfare are not implemented by farmers. Irene has been a champion of efforts to understand constraints to farmer behaviour and how we can overcome these to encourage implementation of management techniques that will improve welfare.
She recently proactively identified the lack of a farmer-focused accessible book describing the current state-of-the-art recommendations on improving common pig welfare related problems. As a result, she is now the editor of a book that I believe will be a go-to resource for farmers.
After four years in Scotland, Irene moved to the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna to continue with her commitment to studying the behavioural needs of pigs in order to improve their lives. She is now based at the Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Jastrzębiec, Poland.
Professor Jean-Loup Rault, Head of the Institute of Animal Welfare Science at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna nominated Irene for the award. He said:
“In addition to possessing excellent scientist skills, Irene is really driven by the wish to make a change to animal welfare in practice. This is best illustrated by the regular articles that she writes in producer or non-specialist journals to disseminate knowledge in regard to pig welfare and practical means to improve it. This, in my opinion, is Irene’s greater skill on which she excels, and for which we need more people like her to help translate scientific knowledge into animal welfare improvements in the field.”
Her activity to date has been global and she has run animal welfare workshops for farmers in China and elsewhere. She also champions the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) in animal research and has proactively introduced new methods into her own research to avoid more invasive physiological measurement (eg by the use of non-invasive infrared thermography to assess stress responses and human pin-prick kits for low-stress sampling of blood glucose and lactate).
Research outputs
2019 Award Winner
Dr Marisa A Erasmus
Education: BS and MS, University of Guelph, Ontario
PhD, Michigan State University
Post-doctoral Training: Michigan State University
During her graduate training and early career as a scientist, Marisa demonstrated independent, scientific excellence, contributed important new knowledge to improve animal welfare, and has a keen aptitude for research in her discipline of applied ethology.
Dr Erasmus has established an extension programme which is unique within the US to educate members of the public about basic animal welfare. As an example, she conducts outreach activities every year at the Indiana State fair – a fair that attracts over 850,000 visitors annually and so her work has the potential to affect the lives of many animals. In addition, she is developing a training programme for animal control officers and anyone who works with animals so that they can identify when animals are in need of assistance. Homework is particularly important as many entry-level animal control jobs require little training or previous experience with animals and on-the-job animal welfare training is limited.
While her outreach efforts are broad and touch on a variety of animal species, her applied research focuses mainly on poultry. She has developed indicators of welfare for laying hens, ducks and turkeys to be used by producers to improve the welfare of their flocks. Her research has spanned a wide range of welfare issues from euthanasia methods for turkeys to feather pecking in ducks and turkeys and indicators of stress and parasite infestations in turkeys and laying hens. Dr Erasmus has contributed significantly to the scientific literature on the behaviour and welfare of the domestic turkey, making her one of the few experts in turkey behaviour and welfare and has published the first and only book chapter on turkey welfare. Her research was the first to validate fear tests for turkeys and to examine the link between fearfulness and its impact on the quality of turkey meat. Marisa has been invited to speak at national and international conferences and she currently serves on several scientific advisory boards for turkey welfare.
Dr Erasmus instructs undergraduate and graduate animal welfare courses and mentors undergraduate students. Throughout the past eight years she has individually mentored over 50 undergraduates and inspired their interest in and passion for animal welfare.
Her goals are to address welfare challenges and inspire students to become interested in animal welfare and become engaged with the agricultural industry.
2018 Award Winner
Dr Rebecca Meagher
Dr Rebecca Meagher, a Lecturer in Dairy Animal Science at the University of Reading was awarded the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year Award in recognition of her exceptional contribution to the field of animal welfare.
Dr Meagher was nominated for the award by her former PhD and post-doctoral advisor Professor Georgia Mason, who said:
“Becky is scholarly, thoughtful, innovative, productive and likely to play a leading role in the future of animal welfare science.”
Dr Meagher has 22 publications, and a lectureship in animal welfare, despite being only 6 years post-doctoral. She has worked in two of the largest welfare science groups in North America (Guelph and University of British Columbia), becoming expert at experimental design and statistics, and knowledgeable about welfare issues in diverse species, especially agricultural. She has taught welfare science to undergraduates and graduate students, including developing new courses and using innovative educational techniques.
In 2012 she lead-authored the first ever empirical demonstration of boredom-like states in animals in barren housing conditions (published in Plos One). This attracted considerable attention from the science media, and has since been accessed over 10,000 times.
Her PhD tackled an unusual theme: why are captive animals often so inactive, and does it matter? To address this she carefully developed and validated indicators of the states of fear, depression, apathy and boredom in the mink. Becky’s subsequent work on simple enrichments for farmed mink helped change animal care codes in Canada (so improving the housing of millions of these animals each year). She also worked on the reliability of tests on dairy calves of their fear of humans and of novelty and investigated whether heifers are motivated to obtain cognitive stimulation. Her other major research achievement is to show that isolating young calves impairs their abilities to learn, again work that attracted high level media attention.
Dr Meagher’s research to date, be it on cattle, mink, mice or parrots, has had its heart two broad, deep and critical questions that are relevant to almost every species we keep. First, how can we tell, objectively, what animals are feeling? Can we broadly identify negative affect, and if we take a modular view of affective states, can we operationalise fear, boredom and depression? And second, why don’t satisfactory food, water, health and thermal comfort suffice to guarantee good welfare?
Amongst the letters of recommendation which accompanied her nomination was one from Professor Daniel Weary from the University of British Columbia, Canada who said:
“Becky is an exceptionally strong thinker and scholar. Her work to date demonstrates her ability to make progress on complex and important problems that address important welfare concerns … I enthusiastically support her nomination for the UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year award.”
Dr Meagher was presented with her award at UFAW’s 2018 one day conference which was held at the Centre for Life, Newcastle, on the 28th of June. She said:
“I’m very honoured to receive this award from UFAW, and grateful to my former supervisor, Prof Georgia Mason, for both the nomination and her mentorship. I have been very lucky in my early career to be able to work with excellent scientists in supportive environments.”
Dr Robert Hubrecht, UFAW’s Chief Executive who presented the award said:
“Dr Meagher’s research has addressed very challenging animal welfare science issues, including individual differences that may affect animals’ housing requirements and inferences about animals’ mental states. Her work shows considerable promise for an outstanding career in animal welfare science and she is a very worthy recipient of this award.”
2017 Award Winner
Dr Pol Llonch
Dr Pol Llonch, a Researcher with the School of Veterinary Science at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain was awarded the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year Award in recognition of his exceptional contribution to the field of animal welfare.
Dr Llonch was nominated for the award by his supervisor, Professor Xavier Manteca, who said:
“Pol’s work has not only been innovative but also very practical. He is full of new ideas and has both a wide and deep knowledge of the field of animal welfare as well as a genuine interest to make a real difference to the welfare of animals.”
Dr Llonch has an impressive track record of more than 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He began his career working on the welfare of pigs being stunned using gas mixtures and he has since worked on a range of animal welfare topics affecting a variety of species, including the electrical stunning of mammals and fish and indicators of welfare in sheep. He has also shown enthusiasm and skill at teaching animal welfare science, and it is a credit to him that he has excelled at this already.
Amongst the letters of recommendation which accompanied his nomination by Professor Manteca was one from Professor Laura Green of the University of Warwick who said:
“Pol is committed to animal welfare and is developing a suite of scientific expertise to address several key aspects of farm animal welfare. I have no doubt he is a future leader in his field.”
Dr Llonch was presented with his award at UFAW’s 2017 International Symposium which was held at Royal Holloway, University of London, from 27th-29th of June.
Dr Robert Hubrecht, UFAW’s Chief Executive who presented the award said:
”Dr Llonch has made an excellent start to his career, working on the welfare of animals at slaughter, an area of animal welfare that often does not attract enough attention.”
2016 Award Winner
Dr Rowena Packer
The 2016 Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year Award was awarded to Dr Rowena Packer, a Clinical Investigations Postdoctoral Researcher at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC).
Rowena has shown a talent for quantitative research, which she has applied to her animal welfare research. Her undergraduate final year research project at the University of Bristol on meta-analysis explored the potential to combine the results of animal welfare research studies, and was exceptional for a scientist at this stage in her career. Her PhD, also of high standard, has raised awareness of the links between extreme conformation and inherited diseases in dogs and its findings have been featured in a number of high profile publications.
Rowena has been proactive and has worked with the dog breeding community in disseminating her research. She has given invited talks to many dog breed clubs and played a major role in organising and hosting an interactive event, ‘Building Better Brachycephalics’, where she presented her PhD findings to approximately 50 stakeholders. Rowena is now a postdoctoral researcher, studying epilepsy in dogs at the RVC, as part of which she co-created the RVC Pet Epilepsy Tracker, a smartphone app for the owners of dog with epilepsy, and ran an owner engagement event, ‘21st Century Management of Canine Epilepsy’. She continues to work alongside breeders and breed clubs to facilitate research that will ultimately reduce the frequency and severity of breed-related disorders in dogs.
Rowena was presented with her award at the UFAW Conference ‘Recent Advances in Animal Welfare Science’ held in York on 23rd June.
The Conference was the fifth in UFAW’s popular series of one-day conferences providing a forum for both experienced and new animal welfare scientists, veterinarians and others to discuss recent developments in animal welfare science.
2015 Award Winner
Dr Jasmeet Kaler
The 2015 UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year award was presented by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare to Dr Jasmeet Kaler, Lecturer in Veterinary Epidemiology and Farm Animal Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham.
UFAW makes this award annually to recognise the achievements of young scientists who have made significant contributions to improving the welfare of animals. The award is open to postgraduate students, anywhere in the world, who are currently studying for a doctoral degree or who are in postdoctoral work within six years of their PhD. This year’s award was presented to Dr Kaler at the UFAW international symposium on ‘Animal Populations – World Resources and Animal Welfare Science’, held recently in Zagreb, Croatia.
Dr Kaler’s doctoral and post-doctoral work on lameness in sheep, which affects around three million sheep each year in the UK, has contributed to current best practice in managing lameness on sheep farms. Her work influenced the Farm Animal Welfare Council opinion on lameness in sheep (2011), and has been used in lameness guidelines considered as industry best practice. Jasmeet’s subsequent work has identified treatments for foot rot and shown that foot trimming in fact delays healing. Her work has contributed to the significant reduction in prevalence of lameness, increased detection and treatment, reduced use of foot trimming and increased use of antibacterial therapy, all of which are of huge impact to the welfare of sheep in the UK.
2014 Award Winner
Dr Lisbet Pluym
The 2014 UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year award was presented by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare at their Advances in Animal Welfare Science conference in York on June 26th 2014 to Dr Liesbet Pluym.
UFAW makes this award to recognise the achievements of young scientists who have made significant contributions to improving the welfare of animals. The award is open to postgraduate students, anywhere in the world, who are currently studying for a doctoral degree or who are in postdoctoral work within six years of their PhD.
Dr Pluym is a researcher in the Porcine Health Unit, Ghent University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine where she has developed, in cooperation with the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, a prototype of an automatic lameness detection system for sows, providing an important new tool to address this problem while also investigating the economic consequences of lameness and risk factors.
Liesbet has made a point of disseminating her findings to farmers and veterinarians, encouraging management systems that improve the welfare and health of animals, enhance farmers’ working pleasure and improve financial performance. Her multidisciplinary and practical approach to lameness alleviation, both as scientist and practicing veterinarian, are likely to have a significant impact within the Belgian industry and more widely.
2013 Award Winner
Dr Nuno Franco
The 2013 UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year award was presented at the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare International Symposium in Barcelona on 4th July 2013 to Dr Nuno Franco of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Porto, Portugal.
Dr Nuno was awarded his Doctoral degree (with Distinction) at the University of Porto in 2012 for his thesis on ‘Animal Welfare and the implementation of refinement in biomedical research’ and has published a series of papers on this subject. Through his work, he has promoted the use of biomarkers that give early indications of the state of disease, in studies of infectious diseases using animal models, so that these can be used as humane end points and the later stages of the disease can be avoided. As he says in a paper published in PloS Pathogens,
“A science-driven approach for the termination of animal studies may not only prevent unnecessary and avoidable suffering, but also contribute to optimizing financial and human resources, enhancing the scientific output and speeding up the scientific process.”
2012 Award Winner
Dr Charlotte Burn
The winner of the 2012 UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year award was announced by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare at its Conference ‘Recent advances in animal welfare science’ held in York on 21st June 2012. UFAW was pleased to present the award, together with a prize of £1,000, to Dr Charlotte Burn, Lecturer in Animal Welfare at the Royal Veterinary College.
Charlotte’s PhD research was into the effects of husbandry regimes on rat welfare. This work, carried out at Oxford University under the supervision of Georgia Mason, has been influential in establishing management standards for the good husbandry of laboratory rats in various countries. Subsequently she was appointed to a post-doctoral position at Bristol University to identify risk factors for poor welfare in horses and donkeys in developing countries, and then became a Research Fellow at the Centre for Animal Welfare at the Royal Veterinary College.
Charlotte’s current research interests include investigating whether boredom or an emotional state like it might exist in animals and how it might be assessed. She also uses advanced statistical techniques to help tackle practical welfare issues, such as the conformational disorders prevalent in certain dog breeds.
She has a reputation for spotting innovative approaches to tackling scientific questions. A recent example of this is her study of tail-chasing behaviour in dogs and owners’ reactions to it, based on clips on YouTube, which highlights the need to raise public awareness of the clinical implications of persistent tail-chasing. This work was published in the journal PLoS One, and adds to her already very impressive publication record in animal welfare science.
2011 Award Winners
Dr Lucy Asher, Dr Lisa Collins, Dr Emma Baxter
The winners of the inaugural UFAW Young Animal Welfare Scientist of the Year awards were announced by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare at its recent International Symposium held in Portsmouth, UK, on the 28th and 29th June 2011.
Three winners were presented with their prize of £1,000 and award certificate by Professor John Webster of the University of Bristol on behalf of UFAW. The recipients were: Dr Lucy Asher, Lecturer at Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science; Dr Emma Baxter, Research Scientist at the Scottish Agricultural College; and Dr Lisa Collins, Lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast.
“The standard of applications for this award was extremely high,” said Dr James Kirkwood, UFAW Chief Executive and Scientific Director. “All three winners have accomplished a great deal of successful and significant work in animal welfare science and have contributed much to future development in their respective fields.”
Lucy Asher’s PhD research at Newcastle University involved methods of quantifying repetitive behaviours in captive starlings. More recently she has worked in a BBSRC funded post at the Royal Veterinary College on projects at London and Bristol including welfare of chickens and pedigree dogs, and continued her studies on mathematical approaches for describing behaviour.
Emma Baxter, amongst other things, has made two important and internationally recognised contributions to the issue of farrowing crates. Her PhD into piglet mortality in non-farrowing crate systems showed the potential for genetic selection in tackling this problem. In her first post-doctoral post she has made great progress in designing and developing the non-crate system known as PIGSAFE and has worked with industry to encourage its uptake.
Lisa Collins undertook her PhD studies at Oxford University into welfare aspects of stocking densities in broiler chickens. Subsequently she took up a research fellowship at the Royal Veterinary College and is now Lecturer in animal behaviour at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her main research interests since completing her PhD have been in developing statistical tools for welfare assessment and in welfare issues associated with dog breeding. She and Lucy Asher were authors of a paper published in the Veterinary Journal on inherited defects in pedigree dogs which has been in the top 10 most downloaded papers in that journal since its publication.
In addition to the three winners, Laura Fox-Clipsham, Animal Health Trust, and Kirsten Walker of the University of Calgary, Canada, were highly commended.