Mike Appleby carried out research and teaching on farm animal management and welfare at the Poultry Research Centre (now Roslin Institute) and the University of Edinburgh for 20 years before moving in 2001 to become Vice President of The Humane Society of the United States and head of their Farm Animals & Sustainable Agriculture section.

David is a veterinary graduate of the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, a member of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists and also holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy.His career has involved periods in private veterinary practice, the pharmaceutical industry and Government service.  David has worked in the UK, Zambia, South Africa and Australia and moved to New Zealand in 1982.David represents the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) on the New Zealand National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee (NAEAC), the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) and the Trans-Tasman Animal Welfare Committee (AWC). David is currently actively involved with the OIE in addressing animal welfare issues at an international level.  He chaired the 2001 OIE ad hoc expert group meeting on animal welfare and currently chairs the OIE Permanent Working Group on Animal welfare.  

Marc Bekoff is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Marc has published many books including ‘The Smile of a Dolphin: Remarkable Accounts of Animal Emotions’, ‘Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart’, ‘The Ten Trusts: What We Must Do To Care For The Animals We Love’ (with Jane Goodall), and the ‘Encyclopaedia of Animal Behavior’. He and Jane Goodall co-founded Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals www.ethologicalethics.org. Marc's homepage is http://literati.net/Bekoff.

Since teaching at Reading University1967-1986, Donald Broom has been Professor of Animal Welfare at Cambridge University, Department of Veterinary Medicine.  His  group have developed concepts and methods of scientific assessment of animal welfare, publishing over 500 papers.  Papers on the welfare of housed calves, sows and hens and of various animals during transport, behaviour problems of pets, attitudes to animals, housing of laboratory and zoo animals, pain, stress and welfare in relation to disease have influenced practice and UK and EU legislation.  Broom was for 8 years on the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council, 7 years on the UK Home Office Animal Procedures Committee, 13 years advising the Council of Europe farm animal protection committee and has been Chairman or Vice Chairman of EU Scientific Committees on Animal Welfare since 1990 and Chairman of the OIE working group on Land Animal Transport.  Major books: Biology of Behaviour (1981, CUP), Farm Animal Behaviour and Welfare (Fraser and Broom 1991,1997 CABI), Stress and Animal Welfare (Broom and Johnson 1993, Kluwer) and The Evolution of Morality and Religion (2003, CUP).

Marian Stamp Dawkins is Professor of Animal Behaviour in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Biology at Somerville College Oxford. She is the author of 'Animal Suffering: the Science of Animal Welfare' (1980) and 'Through Our Eyes only?; the Search for Animal Consciousness' (1993)

Ian Duncan studied for his Ph.D. in the late 1960s at the Poultry Research Centre (PRC) Edinburgh with a topic of frustration and conflict in the domestic fowl. He was thus one of the first people to take a scientific approach to welfare. He worked at the PRC on welfare topics in poultry for 20 years before emigrating to Canada in 1989.  He is Professor of Applied Ethology at the University of Guelph and holds the oldest University Chair in Animal Welfare in North America. In his research, he is developing methods of asking farm animals what they feel about the conditions in which they are kept and the procedures to which they are subjected. He has published more than 150 scientific papers connected to animal welfare. Ian is also heavily involved in teaching; his third-year undergraduate course on farm animal welfare has more than 170 students currently registered.

Patrick has been an organic farmer (mixed dairy) since 1973. He was a founder and first chair of British Organic Farmers and served on the board of UKROFS between 1987 and 1999. Since 1988 he has been employed full-time working for the Soil Association and as Director since 1995. During this time the organisation has had considerable influence over food and farming policy, both at Government level and with the public through its high media profile. Patrick is a regular broadcaster, speaker and writer on organic food and farming issues.
More information can be found at: www.soilassociation.org

Per Jensen is at Linköping university. A leading ethologist, he is well known for his research on the natural behaviour of pigs and for the application of ethology to the understanding of animal welfare. Apart from his research activities, in 2002 he edited the textbook ‘The Ethology of Domestic Animals: an introductory text’, designed for students of animal science, veterinary medicine, animal behaviour and zoology. His present work concerns the genetical aspects of behavioural changes during domestication in chickens. www.ifm.liu.se/~perje

Keith Kenny is Head of Food Strategy for McDonald's UK.  Keith has been extensively involved in the development and implementation of McDonald's animal welfare programme through his prior role as Head of Supply Chain and Quality Assurance and his membership of the McDonald's European Animal Welfare Team.  Keith pioneered the development of the pan-European McDonald's Agricultural Assurance Programme and the company's involvement in the research and development of commercially-viable animal welfare farming systems.  Keith holds a BSc. (Hons) in Food Science from Kings College London.

Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at the Institute of Health Sciences at City University, London. Originally a farmer, then Director of the London Food Commission, Professor Lang has researched and published widely on food policy and is a frequent media commentator and campaigner on food access and food safety issues. A regular consultant to the World Health Organisation and the FAO, he has advised governments, NGOs and organisations around the world. He was a special advisor to the UK Parliamentary Health Committee Inquiry into Obesity 2003-04. He is the author of 10 books and around over 100 articles, reports and briefings.  With Erik Millstone he edited the Atlas of Food (Earthscan, 2003), winner of the 2004 André Simon Food Book of the Year award. Food Wars, written with Michael Heasman, was published in October 2004 (Earthscan, 2004).  He won the BBC Radio 4 Derek Cooper Food Award in 2003.

Peter J. Li, assistant professor of political science at University of Houston-Downtown, Texas, U.S.A. Researcher of Chinese environmental, ecological and animal protection issues. His recent research focus is China's bear farming and its related legal and moral questions. He is currently working on a book project on China's wildlife policy-making.

The Reverend Professor Andrew Linzey is a member of the Faculty of Theology in the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow in Ethics, Theology and Animal Welfare, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. He is also Honorary Professor in Theology, University of Birmingham, and Special Professor, Saint Xavier University, Chicago. His books include: ‘Animal Theology’ (1994), ‘After Noah’ (1997), ‘Animals on the Agenda’ (1998), ‘Animal Gospel’ (1998) and ‘Animal Rites’ (1999).

Ben Mepham is Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at the University of Nottingham. His latest book 'Bioethics: an introduction for the biosciences' will be published in February, 2005. He co-founded and directed the independent Food Ethics Council, and is currently working on an EU-funded project on ethical biotechnology assessment tools. For a decade, he has pioneered use of the 'ethical matrix', a tool now widely used to facilitate ethical decision-making on biotechnologies. An interactive version of the matrix, designed for young people, can be viewed at www.ethicalmatrix.net

Oliver Ryan is Principal Engineer, International Finance Corporation (the private sector arm of the World Bank) based in Washington DC. He is a New Zealander with extensive experience in Asia and is responsible for the technical and commercial support of IFC’s livestock and aquaculture projects world wide.

www.ifc.org

Mark Simmonds is the International Director of Science of WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. He holds two honorary posts at UK Universities and is the Chair of the Marine Animal Rescue Coalition. For ten years he has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission. Mark's research focus has been the threats that whales, dolphins and porpoises face in the modern world - ranging from ongoing and expanding hunting to over-zealous whale-watching - and such issues require consideration of the intelligence, social and sensory systems of these animals. Amongst his publications is 'The World of Whales and Dolphins' released in October 2004. More about the work of WDCS can be found at its website: www.wdcs.org

Dan Weary is a Professor and NSERC Industrial Research Chair for the Animal Welfare Program in the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of British Columbia www.agsci.ubc.ca/animalwelfare. His research is on developing objective methods of assessing animal well-being, and applying these to improve our care for farm and laboratory animals.

John Webster is Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol. He is the founding father of the Bristol Animal Behaviour and Welfare Science team and the original proponent of the 'Five Freedoms'.  His widely-read book 'Animal Welfare: A Cool Eye towards Eden' (1994) is still in print and its successor, 'Animal Welfare: Limping towards Eden' will be published in January 2005.

Françoise Wemelsfelder is Senior Research Scientist in the Sustainable Livestock Systems group at the Scottish Agricultural College. Her main research interests are the understanding of animal suffering (particularly animal boredom), and the development of methods to assess subjective emotional expression (‘body language’) in animals. She has tested the use of these methods with both professional and lay observer groups, and is working on applying them for practical use in the farm animal sector. She also lectures on animal cognition and animal consciousness at the University of Edinburgh.

Qualified at Cambridge University Veterinary School (UK) as a veterinarian in 1963.  In general practice until 1967 and then went to Canada and worked for the Canadian Department of Agriculture for three years.  Returned to general practice in the UK but became a veterinary advisor to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1977 and its Chief Veterinary Officer in 1983.  Moved to Brussels and took up the post of Director of Eurogroup for Animal Welfare from 1992 to 2003.  Acted as an expert to Council of Europe’s Committees on Farm Animal Welfare, Transport and Slaughter.  Member of European Commission’s Advisory Committee on Common Agriculture Policy and Sub-Committee on Animal Welfare.  Coordinator of an International Coalition for Farm Animal Welfare (ICFAW) which was formed to have representation at OIE. Chief Veterinary Adviser to the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).