Core Faculty

CCSAW's Core Faculty focus all of their research and teaching on animal behaviour and welfare.  Collectively with students and staff, this core group (CCSAW Core) is dedicated to better understanding why production and captive animals do what they do, and how the well-being of these animals can be assessed and improved. Their laboratories are located in the Department of Animal Biosciences, the Department of Integrative Biology, the Department of Population Medicine, and the Department of Pathobiology.

CCSAW Core participates in weekly lunchtime meetings for all faculty, students and post docs. These meetings provide an opportunity to practice talks for conferences, discuss recent journal papers, discuss and optimize experiments in the planning stages, and spend time with visitors. Visiting speakers may be delivering talks for the monthly CCSAW Research Seminar series; or one of our two CCSAW endowed lectures, the F.W. Presant Memorial Lecture and the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada Lecture in Memory of Basil Capes. Annually, CCSAW Core Faculty play a major role in the CCSAW Research Symposium, and some are involved in the annual AVMA Animal Welfare Assessment Contest. Additionally, each graduate advisor has regular group meetings with their own students and post docs. Learn more about studying animal welfare.

CCSAW Core Faculty

Renee Bergeron, Department of Animal Biosciences, OAC
Interests: welfare impacts of transportation and farm animal housing (including alternative/organic systems), especially for pigs and dairy cattle.

Trevor DeVries, Department of Animal Biosciences, OAC
Interests: dairy welfare and behaviour, especially the impacts of feeding, housing and disease, and using automated technologies for welfare assessment.

Derek Haley, Department of Population Medicine, OVC
Interests: welfare impacts of transportation, and the physical and social aspects of housing, especially for cattle.

Alexandra Harlander, Department of Animal Biosciences, OAC
Interests: laying hen behaviour, health and welfare, especially housing design and the causes of abnormal behaviour.

Georgia Mason, Department of Integrative Biology, CBS
Interests: how well-being affects behaviour, physiology and brain function, and the chronic effects of housing, especially in zoos and research laboratories.

Katrina Merkies, Department of Animal Biosciences, OAC
Interests: Equine behaviour and well-being, including human-horse communication and the welfare implication of human-horse interaction.

Lee Niel, Department of Population Medicine, OVC
Interests: Companion animal well-being, especially understanding fear and aggression in cats, dogs and rabbits.

Tina Widowski, Department of Animal Biosciences, OAC
Interests: the effects of early rearing conditions and adult housing methods on poultry health, welfare and stress physiology, especially for laying hens.

Charlotte Winder, Department of Population Medicine, OVC
Interests: ruminant health and welfare (e.g. pain control, dairy health), and synthesizing evidence via meta-analysis/systematic review.

CCSAW Emeritus faculty

Ian Duncan
Interests: All aspects of farm animal welfare, and the assessment of animal well-being.

Pat Turner
Interests: Laboratory welfare, effective pain control, and humane killing methods.

CCSAW Adjunct faculty

Penny Lawlis
All aspects of farm animal welfare; developing on-farm welfare audit schemes.

Stephanie Torrey
Pig and poultry welfare, with special expertise in broilers and turkeys.