Topics in Farm Animal Stress, Behavior, and Welfare
An on-line multi-year collaborative series

The field of environmental physiology including studies of animal behavior, stress physiology and animal welfare is a diverse topic area. To work in this area requires a multi-disciplinary education and research program. Graduate students typically work in fields including, at least, animal behavior, neuroscience, immunology, endocrinology, psychology, philosophy, and statistics. Most students work in at least 2 of these fields, but to work in this area some knowledge of all areas is required.

Universities around the USA (and the world) have a few students at selected institutions that study this diverse field. Having a critical mass of students at one institution is not likely. However, a critical mass of students is found when one considers multiple institutions

Students and faculty would benefit from interactions among the diverse fields and institutions. In addition, the burden on individual institutions to have a full program is lifted. Rather, expertise can be developed at different institutions and then the whole field can be studied by each institution’s students without the limitation of local expertise. Our new virtual world associated with the internet and distance education will make this concept easy to implement.