
Dr Andrew Crump is a Lecturer in Animal Cognition & Welfare at the Royal Veterinary College, and a part-time Postdoctoral Researcher at the London School of Economics. Specialising in invertebrate sentience, he studies questions like: Which animals are sentient? Why did sentience evolve? And what does sentience mean for animal welfare? In 2021, Andrew was part of a team that advised the UK government to protect certain invertebrates in animal welfare law. The government responded by amending the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, so it now covers octopuses, crabs, and lobsters.
To go to Dr Andrew Crump’s tool click here.

Culum is head of the Fish Lab at Macquarie University. His expertise is in the field of fish behavioural ecology with particular interest in cognition. He tends to apply his research to real world problems including conservation biology, fisheries and animal welfare. This presentation is on fish welfare can be found here.

My expertise includes utilising and developing behavioural and physiological methods to understand more about animal welfare and animal emotions. During my PhD, I provided the first evidence of a depressive-like state in mice handled by existing methods such as picking them up by the tail and as such have supported the use of refined methods of handling mice to improve their welfare.
To go to Dr Jasmine Clarkson’s tool on mice handling click here.

Dr. Maria Camila Ceballos, an animal welfare and behaviour researcher and assistant professor at the University of Calgary, excels in evaluating and implementing strategies to enhance animal welfare. With extensive experience spanning Colombia, Brazil, the United States, and Canada, she focuses on investigating and improving human-animal relationships. Her expertise lies in fostering harmonious interactions between humans and animals, contributing significantly to the advancement of animal welfare practices globally.
To go to Dr. Maria Camila Ceballos’ tool on Cattle Behaviour and Handling click here.

Dr Lauren M. Robinson is an animal welfare scientist and psychologist specializing in the welfare, personality, and cognition of animals and has multiple publications across these topics. She has a Ph.D. in psychology and wrote her thesis on nonhuman primate personality and welfare. She has worked across several countries (U.K., U.S., and Austria) and done work in animal behavior and endocrinology, animal joy, and canid cognition, among others.
To see Lauren’s tool on Animal Personality click here.

Dr Kris Descovich is an animal behaviour and welfare scientist based in the School of Veterinary Science at The University of Queensland. She is also the Chief Editor of the Animal Welfare Toolbox. You can read more about Kris’ experience and role on the ‘Our team’ page https://animal-toolbox.org/our-team/
To go to Kris’s introductory video on animal welfare click here.

Dr. Chris Byrd is an Assistant Professor of Swine Research and Teaching at North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota USA. His research program focuses on 1) identifying methodologies for measuring physiological stress in animals and, 2) mitigating stressors experienced by pigs on-farm. Chris has extensive experience utilizing HRV for stress measurement in livestock species. He is particularly interested in nonlinear aspects of HRV for detecting and predicting animal stress in response to common on-farm stressors.
To go to Dr Chis Boyd’s tool click here.

Professor Hannah M. Buchanan-Smith has been working in the field of animal welfare science for over thirty years. She has studied animals in laboratories, zoos and animal shelters, and draws on her field work of South American primates in their natural habitats. She uses a multidisciplinary approach to animal welfare assessment, and actively tries to find practical ways to put research findings into practice. Her research on choice, control and predictability arises from her desire to promote better welfare of animals. She has held positions on U.K. government committees, formerly the Animal Procedures Committee, and currently the Zoos Expert Committee. She has published over 120 research articles, contributed to international guidelines and policy promoting good welfare for captive animals, as well as open access websites such as marmosetcare.stir.ac.uk
To go to Professor Hannah M. Buchanan-Smith’s tool click here.

Stefania Celozzi is a third year PhD student in Agriculture, Environment and Bioenergy course at the University of Milan. Stefania gained experience in the collection and evaluation of ethological data in dairy goats and in the assessment of goat welfare, thanks to the implementation of the AWIN welfare assessment protocol for goats. Recently her research interests have expanded to the assessment of animal emotions conveyed by their vocalizations, a very fascinating subject matter unexplored in my research activity until now.
To go to Stefania Celozzi’s tool click here.

Sabrina is Director of Animal Concepts and a PhD candidate at the University of Stirling specialising in the human-animal bond and human wellbeing at animal care facilities. Sabrina has worked with the zoo and aquarium community for over 20 years, helping organisations working with animals to support their people, their animals, and the planet, and to be at their best to do their best.
To go to Sabrina Brando’s tool click here.

Max is Animal Welfare and Conservation Coordinator at AnimalConcepts and also teaches animal management and zoology to degree students. Max has been studying and working with animals since 2016, and now works with AnimalConcepts on content and resource creation and research writing.
To go to Max Norman’s tool click here.

Dr. Eloi Guarnieri is a farm animal internist (American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine) and Clinical Assistant Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences). Dr. Guarnieri’s clinical research interests include veterinary internal medicine, and in particular Ruminant dermatology. He recently demonstrated the high prevalence of skin lesions in dairy cows (Quebec, Canada). With this tool, Dr Guarnieri hopes to arouse the interest of livestock and animal health professionals in these lesions and their consequences.
To go to Dr. Guarnieri’s tool click here.

Rebecca Meagher works in the Department of Animal Science and Aquaculture at Dalhousie University in Canada. She completed her PhD at the University of Guelph and has worked in Canada and the UK. Her main research interests are early life management practices for farm animals, individual differences, and emotional states including boredom. Rebecca has served on the committee to amend the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Mink in Canada, and is a section editor for the journal Animal Welfare.
To go to Dr Rebecca Meagher’s tool click here.

With an MSc in animal welfare, particularly the welfare of fur animals, Gabrielle works at the Toronto Zoo in Wildlife Science and contributes to the Meagher Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research Group at Dalhousie University, Canada.
To go to Gabrielle Clark’s tool click here.

Dr Chenyu Zhang completed his PhD at the University of Reading, UK on the effects of social housing and physical enrichment on dairy calves. He is now working as a postdoctoral researcher, also at the University of Reading. His primary research interest is centred around dairy cattle housing and management, especially the effects of various housing and management on their development, behaviour, health and welfare.
To go to Dr Chenyu Zhang’s tool click here.

Dana Campbell completed her PhD at the University of Auckland in behavioural ecology but moved into the field of animal welfare during postdoctoral appointments at the University of Guelph, Canada, Michigan State University, USA, and then the University of New England, Australia. Dana is a Senior Research Scientist with CSIRO in Armidale, Australia and works with livestock animals to understand their behaviour. She has studied a range of species including chickens, mink, cattle, sheep and ducks. She has over a decade of experience in researching laying hen welfare in both commercial and experimental cage-free housing systems. She is interested in improving the welfare of animals through understanding their adaptation to different housing environments, with a particular interest in the rearing period, provision of enrichment, and use of precision technology to track individuals.
To go to Dana’s education tool on the Welfare Challenges of Egg Laying Hens, click here.

My education and background is mainly in biology, namely ecology and evolution. I completed my Master’s with thesis in Biology in 2019, where I studied the evolution of animal behaviour, evolutionary genetics, and ecology with special topics in ecological climatology. I applied these concepts in my Master’s thesis where I took an interdisciplinary approach to try and understand how the environment, parasitism, and sociality may influence the development of specialized brain regions in a eusocial wasp. I began my PhD in Psychology in 2019, where I expanded on this approach and applied it to the field of animal welfare, incorporating concepts from my previous disciplines and psychology. The goal of my research is to take a broad and interdisciplinary perspective when understanding animal behaviour by understanding the evolutionary basis for behaviour and looking at animals as an extension of the environments in which they live so that this information can be applied to promote positive welfare for captive animals. I will soon graduate from my PhD having published two papers on circadian rhythms and the implications and importance of accounting for them in captive environments. I plan to continue my work exploring the adaptive qualities of circadian rhythms across species, and hope to apply this knowledge to improve animal welfare practices across the globe.
To go to Dr Kristine Gandia’s tool click here.

After completing a PhD in Veterinary Biochemistry, Marine joined the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) Animals in Science department, which works to promote the 3Rs in animal research. Marine’s work focuses on ensuring the robust ethical review of animal use in research by producing resources and delivering training for members of ethics committees (such as Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees [IACUCs] or Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Bodies [AWERBs]). This enables members to contribute to their committees effectively and to ensure animal use in research and testing is challenged both ethically and scientifically. Marine has previously conducted animal research with equids and is also an independent member of the ethical review committee at one of the UK’s top universities.
To go to Dr Marine Barnabé’s tool click here.

Dr Lindsay Skyner is the Animal Welfare Officer of Charles Sturt University in Australia, where she works as an advisor to the university animal ethics committee for the use of animals in research and teaching. She has qualifications and experience in animal behaviour and welfare across a range of species and has worked in the animal industry for 30 years across four countries to date. In 2019 she worked with Companion Animals New Zealand to develop an accreditation programme (CANZ Accreditation) to promote reward-based training methods by people working in the animal behaviour and training industry.
To go to Dr Lindsay Skyner’s tool click here.

I have over 10 years research livestock experience, with particular focus on sheep. In 2013 I graduated from The University of Adelaide with a B. Animal Science and first-class honours. My Honours project looked at the effect of intrauterine growth restriction on sheep stress response. My PhD on self-medication methods in sheep was awarded in 2017. Since then, I have been continuing my work in the livestock behaviour and welfare field with a primary focus in sheep. My past work at CSIRO with the animal behaviour and welfare team had me leading projects that looked at pain mitigation in livestock as well as welfare assessment in sheep.
To go to Dr Danila Marini’s tool click here.

Dr Alex Jiang holds a Ph.D. in animal behavioural science from the University of Queensland, building on a longstanding dedication to animal welfare since his master’s research focused on the welfare of reptiles in captivity. With over a decade of experience in animal welfare organizations, he possesses frontline expertise in working with both domestic animals and wildlife.
To go to Dr Alex Jiang’s tool click here.