Skip to:

Dr Jessica Monk

Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare - Faculty of Science, Agriculture, Business and Law; School of Environmental and Rural Science

Email: jmonk5@une.edu.au

Biography

Jessica Monk is an animal behaviour and welfare scientist currently working to develop a welfare benchmarking program for Australian beef cattle.

Jessica completed her PhD with the CSIRO, UNE and Sheep CRC in 2019, receiving a Chancellors Doctoral Research Medal for her work. Her thesis explored the use of a novel attention bias test for assessing emotional states in sheep. She also developed a novel method for assessing rate of acclimation to new environments and handling in beef cattle and worked towards the identification of a resilience phenotype in sheep.

Jessica is passionate about improving the quality of life of livestock across all production systems and is excited about the role of technology in making that happen. In collaboration with the CSIRO and NSW DPI, Jessica is currently working with industry partners to develop a producer-driven welfare benchmarking program for pasture-based beef cattle. Her other research interests include developing and refining novel measures of affect in livestock, the use of enrichments to promote positive welfare in cattle, the impact of the human-animal relationship on livestock welfare and exploring personality and resilience in sheep.

READ FULL PROFILE

The University of New England respects and acknowledges that its people, courses and facilities are built on land, and surrounded by a sense of belonging, both ancient and contemporary, of the world's oldest living culture. In doing so, UNE values and respects Indigenous knowledge systems as a vital part of the knowledge capital of Australia. We recognise the strength, resilience and capacity of the Aboriginal community and pay our respects to the Elders past, present and future.