PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr Sonja Dominik
Sonja Dominik is currently the acting Research Director for CSIRO Livestock and Aquaculture. She is also the Group leader for Sustainability and Welfare of the Livestock & Aquaculture Program with CSIRO Agriculture and Food in Armidale, adding another dimension to her passion for quantitative genetics. Sonja obtained her PhD at the University of New England in Animal Breeding and Genetics and considers herself a pracademic having mostly worked on industry applied research. Her experience spans across aquaculture and livestock species and across a range of trait complexes such as methane emission in sheep, resistance to amoebic gill disease in Atlantic Salmon and immune competence in beef cattle. Her role in mentoring and engaging with young people around STEM careers, has seen Sonja become one of the SuperStars of STEM with Science and Technology Australia.
Professor Ben Hayes
Professor Hayes is Centre Director, Animal Sciences, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, University of Queensland. He co-authored the ground-breaking genomic selection paper that has revolutionised animal and plant breeding globally [Meuwissen THE, Hayes BJ, Goddard ME (2001) Prediction of total genetic value using genome-wide dense marker maps. Genetics 157, 1819-1829]. Ben led the implementation of genomic selection in the Australian dairy industry including introducing new traits such feed conversion efficiency. Recently, he has helped develop genomic selection for the northern beef industry, particularly genomic EBVs for fertility that can be used in any breed. Ben is the author of more than 250 journal papers and was a Thomson Reuters highly cited researcher in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Professor Hayes will deliver the John Vercoe Memorial lecture at the 24th AAABG Conference.
Professor Mark Hutchinson
Professor Hutchinson is the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP), an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and a Professor within the Adelaide Medical School at the University of Adelaide. Professor Hutchinson’s research explores the “other brain” or the other 90% of cells in the brain and spinal cord. Mark has pioneered research which has led to the discovery of novel drug activity at innate immune receptors. His work has enabled the translation of compounds at the lab bench to clinical agents used at the bedside. Prof Hutchinson’s work with the CNBP is to "Discover new approaches to measure nano-scale dynamic phenomena in living systems” and allow the first minimally invasive realtime visualisations of the “other brain”.
Dr John McEwan
John McEwan is a scientist in the AgResearch Animal Genomics team based at Invermay Mosgiel. John has worked at AgResearch and its forerunner Ministry of AgRiculture and Fisheries, since 1979. Most of his research has involved the genetic and now genomic improvement of sheep, including disease resistance and meat and carcass quality. In more recent years, the focus has shifted to the reduction of ruminant methane emissions. John was involved in implementing animal model BLUP selection technology to the New Zealand sheep industry, the initial sequencing and assembly of the cattle, sheep and deer genomes and the development of various SNP chips allowing the now routine use of genomic selection in those industries. He was also involved in the mapping and use of several loci affecting traits in sheep, including those affecting fertility, carcass composition and meat quality, fat colour, developmental defects and horns. More recently, he has been involved in developing low cost genotyping by sequencing methodologies in a wide variety of species, including its use for microbiome profiling.
Dr Suzanne Rowe
Suzanne Rowe is a quantitative geneticist at AgResearch working on livestock breeding for health and performance traits. She started her genomics career at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh working on gene discovery methods in livestock and humans. Suzanne moved to a senior scientist position in New Zealand in 2013. She has programs in genomic prediction in dairy sheep and deer but currently her main focus is on breeding for low methane and the development of high throughput rumen microbial predictors. Suzanne runs sheep selection lines divergent for methane emissions and a research flock exploring the physiological basis of single trait selection for lowered methane. She will use the findings from these sheep populations to discuss the commercialisation of a decade of research and the implementation of genomic prediction for lowered methane emissions in the New Zealand national flock and what it means for meeting New Zealand’s environmental targets.
Professor Naomi Wray
Professor Wray holds joint appointments at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Queensland Brain Institute within the University of Queensland. She is a NHMRC Leadership Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science. In 2020 she was awarded the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Award for Leadership in Basic Science. She is also a Clarivate Highly Cited researcher.
Naomi’s research focusses on development of quantitative genetics and genomics methodology with application to psychiatric and neurological disorders. She is a Director of the Program in Complex Trait Genomics (PCTG) funded by the NHMRC. Naomi’s research in this field was recently recognised with her 2021 Life-time Achievement Award from the International Society for Psychiatric Genetics.
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