One of our department's PhD students, Morgan Welch, has just had her first research paper published in the journal Animals. Morgan's PhD focuses on the behaviour and welfare of Livingstone's fruit bats



In February 2020, members of our department shared their research with the public at two local events: Chester SciBar and Chester Zoo's Conservation & Cocktails event.

On 9th December, Professor Carl Smith delivered a fascinating research seminar summarising over 20 years of research on bitterlings - various species of fish found in shallow water habitats.


PhD Students Kate Peters and Rachel Ball have both had abstracts accepted at the BES Ecological Genetics Group conference which will be held at the University of St Andrews later on in the year.

In December 2019, Professor Cynthia Burek signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Univerity's previous Vice Chancellor Professor Tim Wheeler.

Biological Sciences MRes student Jessica Harley is to develop a welfare assessment protocol for free-living and conservation grazing ponies.

PhD student Kate Peters has recently published her first paper in the journal Conservation Genetics Resources.


Anna Muir and Kate Peters were awarded the Positive Change Award at the Staff Teaching Awards, part of the Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Chester, for their work to promote gender equality in science.


How can behaviour, social networks and hormone analysis be combined to effectively monitor welfare in captive primates? Staff and students found out more about cutting edge research at Chester Zoo in our first departmental research seminar this year.

Dr Krista McLennan attended the annual Animal Welfare Research Network meeting on 16th and 17th September, held at Bristol University.