Members

Professor Alistair Lawrence holds chairs in Animal Behaviour and Welfare at The Roslin Institute and SRUC. He has studied a diverse range of welfare-related subjects including causes of abnormal behaviours in confined animals, maternal behaviour and physiology (pigs and sheep), prenatal stress and genetics as factors in health and welfare, and economics of animal welfare. His current interests in positive welfare are understanding how to induce and assess positive mental states in animals, and how to link positive experiences to outcomes such as resilience. He is also interested in the interface between animal health and welfare in the wider context of sustainability; he sees an important role for positive welfare in lifting aspirations for how animals are managed and used. 

Dr Sarah M Brown is a lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the R(D)SVS, Programme Director for the MSc International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law, and maintains a research profile within the Roslin Institute. She has a background in behavioural neuroscience and has primarily worked in the field of positive animal welfare since joining the Roslin Institute in 2013. She is interested in how environmental enrichment and handling practices can be used to promote positive mental states in animals, and in how human perception of animals’ behavioural motivations can impact their interactions. She views positive animal welfare as a key component of agricultural sustainability, elevating animal care practice and societal expectations.

Dr Vincent Bombail is a research fellow at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biosciences, Scotland’s Rural College. He is interested in how the environment affects animal physiology, at all levels of biological organisation, from molecules to behaviour. After working on stress biology, he is now focusing on the neuroscience underpinning positive animal welfare, and uses heterospecific play, aka the rat tickling model. More generally he is interested in olfaction and affective neuroscience.