Maria Devant
Maria Devant has a solid background in R&D in Swine and Ruminant Production. Over the last 15 years, she has focused her scientific career in beef production improving feed efficiency and enhancing economic returns while minimising environmental impact, improving animal welfare, and offering high-quality products to the consumers through research and innovation. To achieve this goal the creation and leadership of the Beef Innovation Table has been crucial, in this annual meeting 12 representatives of the whole production chain propose and set priorities of the research topics, and in this forum we also connect them the new societal demands that are coming and that they need to be prepared (like antibiotic user reduction). Her expertise is nutrition and management, and in case a topic needs the expertise in another area we find collaboration within IRTA or outside IRTA to solve it. In the last 5 years she have focused my research in 2 topics: strategies to improve calf vitality and modulation of behavior and stress through nutrition (gut-brain axis). As a result of this work, I have published more than 49 peer-reviewed articles in major international journals (Quartile 1). These publications have a total of 1119 citations yielding an H-index of 21. Besides, in the last 10 years I have presented a total of 80 communications and posters in scientific congresses. Along with this research activity she is head of the Ruminant Production Program (since 2016) and Animal Nutrition Program (since 2021) and member of the Strategic and Scientific Committee at IRTA (since 2019), in these positions where team science needs to be successful, two skills like i) openness to different perspectives and being able to conceptualize the big picture, ii) and being able to uniting people around a common mission are needed.
Sonia Martí
Dr. Sonia Marti is a Research Scientist in the Department of Ruminant Production at Institut de Recerca i Tenologia Agroalimentaries de Catalunya, Spain. After completing the BAgrE, MSc and PhD in animal production (2012), Sonia completed an NSERC Postdoctoral fellowship at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge (2013-2016) and the University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (2016-2018) conducting studies on painful procedures, the evaluation of chronic stress, as well as beef cattle lameness and transportation. Dr. Marti’s current research focuses on evaluating management practices of unweaned dairy calves reared for meat with a focus on health, productivity, welfare, and pre-slaughter factors to improve welfare and meat quality
Paul Berghuis
CEO Berghuis Kälberhandel GmbH, Trading and Working in highest quality with Calves since more than 45 Years.
Chairmann Vieh- und Fleischhandelsverband Nordrhein-Westfalen
Chairmann of Schulverein Vieh und Fleisch
Ruth Bowstra
Ruth Bouwstra is an experienced manager in the field of animal health and welfare. She is working as Director Corporate Affairs and Quality at the VanDrie Group. She is skilled in veterinary medicine, microbiology, diagnostics, food safety and sustainability.
She finished a PhD and worked as practitioner and manager in research and business. Translating knowledge into practice is what she loves to do and with that she contributes to a guaranteed healthy, sustainable, and high-quality feed and food production.
Yves Millemann
Briefly, I have a position as a professor in large animal medicine here in Alfort (école nationale vétérinaire d’Alfort, the oldest vet faculty in the world that is still on its foundation site = 1765) since 2011. Alfort is the vet school situated in the vicinity of Paris (you can see it on our recently renovated logo, that I attached also).
I was the head of the production animals department here in Alfort for 13 years.
I am diplomate of the ECBHM since 2008 and have participated to several committees (I still belong to the credentials committee).
Regarding research I wrote more than 40 papers published in scientific journals. The topics were epidemiology of Salmonella infections in animals, and resistance to antibiotics of Gram negative bacteria found on herds. In addition I wrote more than one hundred technical papers (including clinical cases…) in professional journals (mainly French journals).
Ruurd van Elburg
Ruurd van Elburg holds an endowed chair for Early Life Nutrition at the University of Amsterdam & Amsterdam University Medical Center. He is a distinguished expert in the field of pediatric nutrition, with a particular focus on the critical first 1,000 days of life, a period that extends from conception to two years after birth. This developmental window is crucial as it significantly influences long-term health outcomes. Van Elburg’s research encompasses both short-term and long-term effects of nutrition during this paramount period. He conducts preclinical studies at the Tytgat Institute of the Amsterdam Medical Center - University of Amsterdam (AMC-UvA), as part of the University's Gastroenterology & Metabolism research theme. In addition, he engages in clinical research at the Emma Children’s Hospital, aligning with the Reproduction & Development research theme. His preclinical and clinical research also included the effects of antibiotics in early life.
David Speksnijder
David Speksnijder has been trained as veterinarian at Utrecht University (2009). He then started working in a private veterinary practice with an emphasis on ruminant healthcare. In 2011 he started a PhD trajectory on antimicrobial presribing behaviour of large animal veterinarians while continuing part time working in practice. He completed his PhD study at Utrecht University (Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology) in 2017. After obtaining his PhD degree he continued working as a teacher and researcher at the same Department, combining this with clinical work, teaching and research activities in the University Farm Animal Practice (Home - ULP).
During and shortly after his study veterinary medicine, David has been active as board member of DIO Foundation (Veterinarians without borders, part of Veterinaires Sans Frontieres Europe) and coordinated several projects in developing countries. Subsequently, he has been board member of Veterinarians without Borders the Netherlands ((Dierenartsen zonder Grenzen - Dierenartsen Zonder Grenzen))
From 2012 onwards, David has been involved in several research projects related to antimicrobial stewardship and antimicrobial resistance, both in developed and developing countries. Additionally, David has been active in several international consultancy missions and expert meetings, commissioned by amongst others FAO, WHO and OIE.
In the University Farm Animal Practice, Davids focus is on field research and organic farming and he is responsible for coördinating teaching activities.
David is member of the Expert Committees for Infectious Disease Control and of Antimicrobial Resistance of the Dutch health research funding agency ZonMw (Infectieziekten | ZonMw Antimicrobiële resistentie 3 (AMR3) (zonmw.nl)) and of behalf of the Dutch Veterinary Association KNMvD member of the College of Stakeholders Bovine of the Foundation Certified Veterinarians (Home (geborgdedierenarts.nl)).
Stan Jourquin
Researcher and bovine veterinarian at the Department of Internal Medicine Reproduction and Population Medicine at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Ghent University since 2020. Stan is currently finalizing his PhD on the on-farm use of quick thoracic ultrasound (qTUS) for detection and management of pneumonia in calves.
He is interested in rationalizing antimicrobial use for respiratory tract infections in dairy, beef and veal calf settings. In his research, Stan focusses on improving diagnostic performance of field practitioners in using qTUS to diagnose calf pneumonia and has performed multiple randomized clinical trials evaluating antimicrobial treatment and vaccine efficacy. By using qTUS to individualize treatment to the needs of each animal and evaluate the effects of different management strategies, Stan aims to develop evidence-based strategies to rationalize antimicrobial use in a responsible manner.
Peter Mölder
Peter Mölder is born and raised at a white veal farm, after his studies worked 2,5 years in veterinary practice works since 18 years as a veterinarian at Denkavit. Occupied with R&D calves at Denkavit and research and policies for the veal sector in the Netherlands.
Veal sector subjects are environmental impact of veal production, animal welfare and health, antibiotic reduction, transportation of calves, rubber slatted floors, meat quality
Marc Boelhauve
Marc Boelhauve researches and teaches at the Department of Agriculture at the South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences in Soest, Germany, with a practical focus on hygiene issues in pig and cattle farms,
in particular biosecurity to protect farms from the transmission of pathogens and to maintain health. In these projects, the process and technical changes to existing hygiene procedures as well as the obstacles to
the implementation of individual hygiene procedures are analyzed and reduced in a practice-oriented manner.
In addition, the One Health approach is a focal point of research and teaching activities in order to eliminate zoonotic and antibiotic-resistant pathogens from animal husbandry, among other things.
Jantijn Swinkels
Jantijn Swinkels is a veterinarian from The Netherlands. He was a partner in a mixed veterinary practice for 15 years, focusing on preventive herd health of dairy farms, resulting in a recognition by the Royal Dutch Veterinary Association as a Bovine Herd Health specialist in 2005. He then joined the Global ruminant team of MSD Animal Health, Boxmeer, The Netherlands. When the headquarters of MSD moved to the USA, Jantijn joined The Dutch Animal Health Service, in Deventer, where besides on farm consultancy, he did his PhD on mastitis.
He then returned to MSD Animal Health, where he is now Global Technical Director in the Global Ruminants Business Unit. Within this position his focus is new product development, training, and research mainly focused on udder health, but also on youngstock, throughout the world.
Jantijn is an author of numerous peer reviewed scientific papers and has lectured many times all over the world on scientific congresses.
