Associate Professor Fran Cowley

Associate Professor, Livestock Production - School of Environmental and Rural Science

Fran Cowley

Phone: +61 2 6773 6164

Email: fcowley@une.edu.au

Biography

Associate Professor in Livestock Production in the School of Environmental and Rural Science. She is a leader of the UNE Ruminant Research Group (RRG). Her research interests range from the systems level of livestock production down to the metabolic level, studying the actions and interactions of nutrients with ruminant physiology.  She has conducted research on sheep, dairy and beef cattle, in grazing and grain-fed systems. Currently a main focus for her research is nutritional solutions to methane emissions and carbon footprints of cattle and sheep, utilising the world's largest methane research facility at UNE. Fran has a keen interest in research for grain-fed cattle, and has conducted numerous industry-funded research projects to improve the productivity, welfare and sustainability of Australian lot-fed cattle at Australia's only commercial-scale research feedlot at  UNE's Tullimba Feedlot.

Fran has extensive experience in agricultural research in South East Asia and the Pacific. She has worked on research for development projects in ruminant livestock systems in Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Fiji and Samoa. In these projects she has lead a variety of research activities associated with animal nutrition, cattle growth paths, and village-based beef production systems and livelihoods research. Fran leads a large group of researchers and post-graduate students in the RRG, supervising more than 20 PhD and Masters students. Qualifications: Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Hons), The University of Queensland. PhD in Animal Nutrition, The University of Queensland.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Hons), The University of Queensland.
  • PhD in Animal Nutrition, The University of Queensland.

Teaching Areas

Publications

Schmoelzl, S., and Cowley, F.C. (2016) The case for pre-parturient selenium and iodine supplementation of ewes for improving lamb survival. Animal Production Science, (in press).

Cowley, F.C., Barber, D.G., Houlihan, A.V. & Poppi, D.P. (2015) Immediate and residual effects of heat stress and restricted intake on milk protein and casein composition and energy metabolism. Journal of Dairy Science, 98(4): 2356-2368.

Ratnawati, D., Cowley, F.C., Pamgungkus, D., Mayberry, D.E. and Poppi, D.P. (2015) Diet formulation for increasing the profitability of smallholder fattening operations in East Java, Indonesia. Indonesian Journal of Veterinary Technology.

Cowley, F.C., Ratnawati, D., Pamgungkus, D., Mayberry, D.E. and Poppi, D.P. (2015) Increasing the profitability of Indonesian smallholder cattle enterprises by purchasing high quality by-product feeds (Poster). Tropical Agriculture Conference 2015, 16-18 November 2015. Brisbane, Australia.

Cowley, F.C., Scott, F., Martin, B., and Iv, S. (2015) Characterisation of cattle-owning households and their feeding practices in North-West Cambodia (Poster). Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition Conference, 26-28 October 2015. Armidale, Australia.