Advisory Board and Editors Animal Welfare
Sharif S Aly
As a veterinary epidemiologist I specialize in dairy cattle infectious diseases and welfare. I received my veterinary medicine degree from Cairo University (1998), practiced for two years before completing the Food Animal Production Medicine Internship at the Caine Veterinary Teaching Center at the U of Idaho, followed by the Food Animal Reproduction and Herd Health Residency at U of California, Davis. I completed my masters and doctoral degrees at UC Davis in Preventive Veterinary Medicine and Epidemiology, respectively.
Eduardo J Fernandez
Dr. Eduardo J. Fernandez is a Senior Lecturer of Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare in the School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Adelaide (Australia). He received his Ph.D. in Psychology (minors in Neuroscience and Animal Behavior) from Indiana University and his M.S. in Behavior Analysis from the University of North Texas.
Most of his past and current work involves behavioral research applied to the welfare and training of zoo, aquarium, and companion animals. He runs the Operant Welfare Lab (OWL), which is dedicated to the use of learning principles to improve the lives of animals across many settings, including exotic animals in zoos and aquariums and companion animals in homes and shelters. OWL is also part of the larger Animal Behaviour, Welfare, and Anthrozoology Lab (ABWAL; abwal.com).
Fernando Mata
Dr. Fernando Mata has an academic background in Agronomy and Animal Production at the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, where he also completed his postgraduate studies in Applied Maths. In addition, Dr. Mata completed his postgraduate studies in Pedagogy for Higher Education at The University of the West of England, UK. The skills gained while studying Maths and Animal Science led to him becoming an Animal Welfare Epidemiologist, the topic of his Doctorate in Veterinary Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Professionally, he began his career as a dairy farmer and later moved into academia. He has lecturing experiences both in Portugal (Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre) and in the UK (University of the West of England, Newcastle University, Greenwich University and Wrexham Glyndwr University).
Currently, Dr. Mata is fully focused on research at the Centre for Research and Development in Agrifood Systems and Sustainability in the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo Portugal. Fernando has Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, is a Registered animal Scientist with the British Society of Animal Science and is a Certified Biologist with the Royal Society of Biology. Apart from Animal Welfare Epidemiology, Fernando is interested in Animal Production, and Animal Performance in general.
Alan G McElligott
Dr. Alan McElligott is an Associate Professor in Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. He received his BSc from University College Cork, PhD from University College Dublin, and postdoctoral training at the University of Zurich. After serving as faculty member at the University of Nottingham, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Roehampton, he joined City University of Hong Kong in 2020. Dr. McElligott's main research areas include animal behaviour and cognition, animal welfare, and vocal communication.
Tamara Tadich
Dr. Tamara Tadich is a researcher within the Institute of Animal Science at the Universidad Austral de Chile.
Her research interests include animal welfare in productive species with an emphasis on equids (horses, mules and donkeys), using tools of applied ethology and physiology.
Jennifer Vonk
Jennifer Vonk is a comparative/cognitive psychologist with primary research interests in two overlapping areas: (1) animal cognition and behavior, and (2) animal welfare. The underlying goal of her work is to examine cognitive continuities and discontinuities between humans and both closely and distantly related species. Her current work centers on social cognition, such as theory of mind, prosociality, and reasoning about emotions, as well as physical cognition, such as causal reasoning, analogical reasoning, numerosity, and natural concept formation. More recent work is focused on examining the effects of early life experiences on human and animal decision-making processes.