Anna Ratuski – Anna completed her PhD with the Animal Welfare Program this spring. Dr. Ratuski studied conceptual and applied approaches to environmental enrichment for mice and rats living in laboratories. Her work demonstrates how species-appropriate changes to conventional laboratory housing can allow for the expression of motivated behaviours and improve rodent welfare.
Read about her story here.
Meghan Lok – Meghan is currently the Communications and Media Assistant of the Animal Welfare Program (AWP), which is part of the UBC Work Learn Program, and she will be continuing in this role throughout the summer. She has just completed her second directed study, assisting PhD student Lexis Ly with her project on the emotional impact of and attitudes toward pet rehoming. After this foray into social science research and graduating with a major in Applied Animal Biology and a minor in Psychology, Meghan aims to pursue graduate studies focused on human-animal interaction and One Welfare. With an equal passion for communications/media, Meghan aspires to be a science communicator, making animal welfare research accessible to the general public.
Read about her story here.
Amalia Urloiu – Amalia holds a Work Learn position with the Animal Welfare Program (AWP), where she has assisted a lab mouse euthanasia refinement study and performed qualitative data analysis for a literature review of survey methods for investigating public views of gene editing in livestock. Amalia also works as a research assistant for the AWP and Centre of Applied Ethics, investigating student perspectives of antimicrobial peptide use in farm animals. She is completing an undergraduate thesis with Dr. Marina (Nina) von Keyserlingk on Canadian dairy farmer views on newborn calf care and welfare. Amalia aspires to continue her academic journey as a graduate student and become an animal welfare scientist specializing in social science methodologies and animal behaviour research.
Read about her story here.
Kathen Li – Kathen is a recent LFS graduate studying Applied Animal Biology with honours and a minor in Microbiology and Immunology. His research interest is the welfare of laboratory animals. For the past 3 years, Kathen has been conducting rodent welfare research with Dr. Joanna Makowska. His undergraduate thesis focused on the effects of burrowing substrates on the welfare of laboratory mice. Meanwhile, he had the opportunity to work in UBC’s Animal Welfare Program and Centre for Comparative Medicine. After graduation, Kathen plans to work on publishing his thesis while looking for animal advocacy opportunities.
Read about his story here.
Katie Berlinger – Katie is currently the Social Media Manager for the Animal Welfare Program (AWP), also part of the UBC Work Learn Program. Katie will be continuing her academic journey by pursuing a Master’s in Marine Science, with hopes of becoming a Marine Mammal Biologist. Her favourite courses at UBC were APBI 317, and EOSC 315. APBI 317 focused on ways to improve animal welfare in research and was taught by PhD student Anna Ratuski. EOSC 315 focused on the ocean ecosystem. Since beginning this position with the AWP she has been exposed to numerous opportunities that she doesn’t believe she would have been able to reach otherwise. In the past year, Katie has also been able to tune into her Applied Animal Biology major more than she has in the rest of her academic career, and she is so grateful that she decided to work with the AWP!
Read about her story here.
Lesley Dampier – Lesley is the Animal Welfare Program’s research coordinator. She recently completed her Masters in Education in Adult Learning and Education. She brings her interest in teaching and learning to the team alongside her organizational and managerial skills. With a previous MSc and as a Professional Agrologist, she will be bringing her experiences back to her work with the program.