Animal Health Canada Forum 2024: Speaker spotlight

The Animal Health Canada Forum 2024 takes place on October 8 & 9 in Ottawa, Ontario. We are excited to put the spotlight on some of the incredible speakers for this event.

Tina starts the morning of Day 2 (October 9) with her presentation:
Minding the Gaps: Addressing Research Needs for Our Codes of Practice

Tina M. Widowski, PhD (University of Illinois-UC) is Professor of Animal Biosciences at the University of Guelph, Canada. She has spent over 35 years investigating how housing and management practices affect the behaviour, health and welfare of farm animals, with an emphasis on pigs and poultry. Over her career, research topics have ranged from more fundamental ethology, including studying motivation for nesting and dustbathing and effects of early life experience on behavioural and physical development to identifying humane methods and best practices for transporting pigs to slaughter and euthanizing compromised animals on farms. From 2007 to 2020, she was Director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare (CCSAW) at Guelph. Widowski has supervised/co-supervised over 80 graduate students and published hundreds of papers and book chapters. She serves(d) on a number of committees that develop guidelines for the care of farm animals including National Farm Animal Care Council (Canada) Scientific Committees for Pigs, for Turkeys, Broilers and Breeders and for Laying Hens (Chair), and the Code of Practice Development Committee for Laying Hens and Pullets. She also serves on the United Egg Producers Scientists Committee on Animal Welfare in the USA. These scientific advisory positions with industry provide opportunities for Widowski to directly transfer research results to industry practice and to identify the most relevant and pressing research needs of the industry. 

Join Briana on Day Two (October 9) when she presents:
The Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing’s toolkit for managing mental health during agricultural emergencies

Brian Hagen, PhD, is the Chief Executive Officer and Lead Scientist for the Canadian Centre for Agricultural Wellbeing. After completing her Master’s of Science in Community Health and Epidemiology, she completed a PhD in the department of Population Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph. Using both survey and qualitative data, she examined how farmers and their farms are impacted by mental health outcomes, with a focus on perceived stress and the barriers and facilitators of help-seeking for farmers. Briana is passionate about collaborative research approaches and building strong partnerships with the agriculture community to co-design research projects and mental health programming. After completing her PhD in July 2020, she completed a two-year Mitacs Elevate Post-Doctoral Fellowship to continue her investigations around farmer mental health in Canada and expand access to ‘In the Know’: mental health literacy training for Canadian agriculture, which she co-developed. Dr. Hagen has won several awards for this work, including the 2020 Brigid Rivoire Award for Champions of Agricultural Mental Health, the 2021 Research Achievement Award from the International Society of Agricultural Safety and Health, and the 2022 University of Guelph Innovation of the Year award for the development of ’In the Know’.

Don't miss the opportunity to learn from these two speakers!

Early bird registration ends July 14th!

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