My research will contribute to our fundamental understanding of the role of nutrition in disease prevention and strategies to implement change working through families.
Promotion of dairy cattle health, production, efficiency, and welfare not only contributes to economic viability of the dairy production sector, but also provides benefits to the consumers of milk products. These benefits include environmental sustainability, maintenance of milk nutritional quality and safety, as well as assurance that milk is sourced from animals that have been raised humanely.
My research focuses primarily on the genetic regulation of innate immunity in animals, with a particular focus on innate immune pattern recognition proteins.
I and my lab study animal welfare. We're interested in how to create good living conditions for animals kept in labs, zoos and farms; in how scientists can assess well-being objectively; and in what happens to brain and behaviour when animals are raised and kept lifelong in confining, barren enclosures.