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Prof Mizeck Chagunda

Mizeck is Director of the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health based at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, and was previously Chair of Animal Breeding and Husbandry in the Tropics and Subtropics at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He is an animal breeding and quantitative genetics expert who has pioneered research on innovative techniques for quantifying, measuring and defining phenotypes for difficult-to-measure traits related to disease resistance, adaptation, resilience and enteric methane emissions. His research and academic work has been set in a wide range of production systems and contexts ranging from smallholder through to intensive, and his faculty experience comes from the University of Malawi, University of Goettingen, Aarhus University, SRUC and University of Hohenheim. He is a founding member of the African Animal Breeders Network.

Dr Orla Shortall

Orla Shortall is a social scientist whose research focused on farmer decision making and change within agricultural systems, with a background and emphasis on dairying. She is an associate researcher at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen and currently works as a research development officer at Trinity College Dublin. She is also a writer and performer and her non-fiction book about dairy farming M*lk: Exploring the Dairy Dilemma will be published in February 2027 by September Publishing.

Dr Joe Neary

Joe is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Livestock and One Health at the University of Liverpool. He qualified in veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge, where he also gained a First in Zoology, before completing a PhD in bovine pulmonary hypertension at Colorado State University, USA.  This involved working with ranchers in the Rocky Mountains and feedlot producers on the Great Plains. He subsequently held a faculty position at Texas Tech University before returning to the UK in 2019. Joe’s starting point in research has consistently been the animal itself: how disease, environment and management shape its health and welfare, and how those in turn shape farm outcomes. He applies this lens to calf health, pathogen transmission, and AI-driven technologies for lameness detection, body condition scoring, and automated dairy housing. Alongside his academic work, he has a suckler beef farm in North Wales, which keeps his research grounded in the practical realities of extensive livestock systems.