Tina Widowski

About

Tina Widowski completed her undergraduate, master’s and PhD degree at the University of Illinois-Urbana, where she met her husband and fellow OAC faculty member, Nate Perkins. Although interested in animal agriculture, after graduation Tina found herself working with monkey colonies in the department of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for three years before moving to Guelph.

“One of the best parts of my job is working directly with farmers, and the tremendous opportunities that provides for both me and my students. We tackle some very tough animal welfare issues and it is extremely rewarding to see our work make a real difference in the world.” – Tina Widowski

As the director of the internationally recognized Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare (CCSAW) at the University of Guelph, Tina provides leadership and administration to the body of faculty, staff and students involved. She is very proud of CCSAW’s long history of innovation and research and its current reputation of hosting the largest animal welfare graduate program in North America. Tina works tirelessly to grow CCSAW by recruiting faculty and funding to support the graduate programming.

Tina’s research has been widely applied to and adopted by industry. Over the years, she has focused her efforts on the housing and care of production swine and poultry. Her research involving the development of humane methods of euthanasia for poultry and piglets has influenced animal care practices around the world. Tina has also improved transport and handling of market pigs, and her work on sows and piglets has made a tremendous impact on how production swine are cared for.

As the Egg Farmers of Canada Chair in Poultry Welfare she primarily focuses on laying hens and pulls from her background in behaviour and physiology. She is currently focusing on the benefits of furnished cages to support nesting and dust bathing behaviour in laying hens and how the housing and care of birds, spanning from parent flock to growing chick through to adulthood, can have lifelong effects on their behaviour, health and productivity.

References and Further Reading

• "Tina M Widowski", http://animalbiosciences.uoguelph.ca/abscpeople/twidowsk

Posted on September 18, 2014