SEMINAR PROCEEDINGS- vHive Seminar and AI Hackathon Closing Ceremony
Event Organisers and Sponsors
Our annual vHive event was held on the 10th December 2024 at the University of Surrey campus focusing on Food Security and Pandemic Preparedness. The seminar consisted of presentations from local and international speakers, as well as the closing ceremony for the top 3 projects from our AI Hackathon. We are pleased to share the following presentations:
Government action to protect food security during a crisis
Dr Helen Roberts- Senior policy and Science advisor, exotic disease control team; DEFRA
Bio: I have a BSc in Zoology and a PhD in Parasitology, both from Imperial College, London. I spent ten years in academia in the UK including field work in Colombia and a secondment in Australia, studying neglected tropical diseases, then several years working for international health NGOs (on human health issues, such as malaria and school children’s health). In 2007 I joined Defra, as part of the National Epidemiology Expert Group for outbreaks in the VLA (now APHA). In 2008 I moved to Defra’s Global Animal Health team (imports section) becoming head of international disease monitoring and risk assessment in 2010. I am currently Defra’s senior policy advisor for non-livestock diseases including wildlife and New Emerging Diseases and science/risk advisor on all exotic animal diseases and exotic zoonoses. I lead a team of research programme managers, covering our £10 million plus annual budget for science research and I am part of a consortium for developing new technology for animal and plants diseases. I lead for animal health horizon scanning and risk assessment across government departments such as the biosecurity programme in Defra, the cross government international natural hazard forward look and was covering one health in the G7 health track UK presidency in 2021. I am chair of the UK Human-Animal Infections and Risk Surveillance group, formerly on the EFSA Animal Health and Welfare Panel and a member of the WOAH Collaborating Centre on Risk Assessment and Modelling and as such have been involved in delivering training on WOAH guidelines for risk assessment and FAO consultancy on animal disease risk in multiple international environments.
How do we prepare for a disease outbreak? A farm to fork approach
Mandy Nevel- Professor of Health and Biomedical Informatics; AHDB
Bio: Helen graduated from the RVC after completing a degree in agriculture. She then spent time in farm animal practice before undertaking a PhD in sow physiology, again at the RVC. Following a post-doc in Canada at the University of Saskatchewan, she returned to the UK to work in vaccine development with Pfizer (now Zoetis). She then set up a joint APHA-RVC post-mortem pathology service in 2003 at the RVC and as a Senior Lecturer, establishing a Masters Course in One Health and continuing research into infectious diseases of livestock. In 2018 she joined AHDB and is the Head of Animal Health and Welfare (covering cattle, sheep and pigs). She is past president and currently Hon. Sec of the Pig Vet Society.
Horizon scanning and risk assessment in international animal disease monitoring (IDM)
Paul Gale- Risk Analyst; APHA
Bio: Paul read Biochemistry at Oxford University in the 1980s and went on the do a D Phil in Molecular Biophysics studying the interactions between membrane proteins and phospholipids. He worked for 13 years at Water Research Centre developing quantitative risk assessment techniques for pathogens in drinking water taking into account the spatial distribution of pathogens. In Feb 1997 he was an expert witness at the Public Inquiry for BSE in drinking wate representing the Environment Agency. In the aftermath of the 2001 FMD outbreak he developed a risk assessment model for Defra for livestock pathogens including African swine fever virus in composted catering waste applied to land, setting the operational standards for the compost industry. He developed a risk assessment for human pathogens in sewage sludge supporting the Safe Sludge Matrix in 2002. In 2003 he joined Syngenta Crop Protection working on dietary safety risk assessments before starting at APHA in 2006 where he worked on risk assessments for the impact of climate change on livestock pathogens and led an EU project looking at Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever entering Europe through wild birds. He has used his ornithological knowledge to assess the risks of HPAI entering GB. He has also applied his Biochemistry background to developing dose-response models for novel pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 based on thermodynamic parameters.
Veterinary Pandemic Preparedness: Industry perspective
Mercedes Mourino- Research and emerging diseases director, veterinary medicine R&D; zoetis
Bio: In Zoetis, the world’s leading animal health company, Mercedes supervises an R&D team located in Spain responsible for the activities related with the development in the EU of vaccines against Emerging Infectious Diseases and leads diverse external research collaborations for the delivery of novel vaccines.
She received her degree in Biology and her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Barcelona, Spain. She has 25 years’ experience in Research and Development for animal vaccines. She and her team have brought several vaccines to the European markets as Suvaxyn® CSF Marker (Classical Swine Fever virus), Zulvac® SBV (Schmallenberg virus) and several Zulvac® BTV vaccines (Bluetongue virus, for sheep and cattle).
Temporal Dynamics of Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in cattle: Before, During and After an outbreak
Caroline Hamilton- Technical services associate; Katherine Lotspeich, US account Manager; Georgina Wagner, Data Scientist; Peacock Technology
Bio: Caroline Hamilton grew up on a dairy, beef and sheep farm based in Scotland and developed a keen interest in agriculture at a young age. She studied Applied Animal Science and then began a career as a ruminant feed advisor. She has since joined Peacock Technology as a Technical Services Associate where she works with farmers to ensure they are getting the most from their analysing their data.
Bio: A true daughter of dairy, Katharine was raised on a large dairy farm in the western United States, where her family still milks 5,000 cows. She graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor’s degree in dairy science and agricultural leadership, and a minor in political science.
She began her career in dairy nutrition, moving on to work as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill in Denver and then working for AGPROfessionals as a livestock regulatory consultant in northeastern Colorado. Throughout those roles, she honed her skills in customer relations and policy interpretation across agricultural sectors, becoming a dedicated advocate for agricultural producers.
Driven by world-class customer engagement, partnership, and service, Katharine brings that experience and passion for the dairy industry to her current role as the US Account Manager for Peacock Technology, a Scottish agri-tech company focusing on artificial intelligence monitoring and labor solutions for dairies.
Bio: George Wager is a Data Scientist at Peacock Technologies and an Elizabeth Creak Fellow pursuing a PhD at Harper Adams University. Her research focuses on using cattle feeding behaviour to predict feed intakes, combining precision livestock farming techniques with advanced data science to improve efficiency and sustainability in agriculture.
George began her academic journey at Harper Adams in 2016, earning a BSc (Hons) in Agriculture and an MSc in Data Science. Her work has contributed to innovative projects like Tuberscan, which employs deep learning to enhance agronomy decisions in the potato industry.
In addition to her PhD, George is a member of the Global Institute for Agri-Tech Economics and has been recognised with prestigious scholarships, including the Mercer Scholarship and Clyde Higgs MSc Scholarship. Through her expertise in machine learning, computer vision, and agricultural, George is committed to advancing sustainable practices in the livestock sector.
Her dual role as a Data Scientist at Peacock Technologies and a researcher ensures she remains at the forefront of integrating cutting-edge data science into agricultural systems.
Genetic and Computer vision tools for controlling gastrointestinal nematodes in sheep
Guilherme Rosa- Professor in Precision livestock production and breeding; University of Wisconsin- Madison
Bio: Guilherme Rosa obtained an M.S. in Animal Sciences from Sao Paulo State University (UNESP) – Brazil in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Statistics and Agricultural Experimentation from the University of Sao Paulo (USP) – Brazil in 1998. He started his professional career as a faculty member of the Department of Biostatistics at UNESP (1994-2001), then moved to the USA as a faculty member at Michigan State University (2002-2006), and is currently a Professor at the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences and the Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (since 2006).
Guilherme teaches courses and develops research on quantitative genetics and statistical genomics, including design of experiments and data analysis tools. Some specific areas of interest include mixed effects models, Bayesian analysis, and Monte Carlo methods. More recently, Guilherme has been working also on the analysis of observational data in agriculture, and precision livestock management tools, using a variety of statistical and machine learning methods.
Guilherme has published 13 book chapters and over 250 refereed papers in scientific journals and has funded his program with outside grants valued at over $14 million. He has been awarded with the LeClerg Rotary Lecturer from the Biometrics Program at the University of Maryland (2011), and the Rockefeller Prentice Memorial Award in Animal Breeding and Genetics, by the American Society of Animal Science (2016). He has also received the Pond Research Award (2013), the Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Award (2017), the Excellence in International Activities Award (2017), the Kellett Mid-Career Award (2021), and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship (2024), from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
AI Hackathon Closing Ceremony
Hackathon Organisers and Sponsors
On 2nd October 2024 we launched an AI Hackathon competition. The competition sought applications that address novel uses of the LEO data on livestock, and which leverage approaches in AI, data sciences, and statistics.
The competition closed for voting on the 14th November 2024. Thus, the seminar provided an excellent opportunity to host the Closing Ceremony for the Hackathon. Here we heard presentations from the top 3 projects and announced the winner!
We are pleased to share the following presentations:
1st Place- MegaUle
Leveraging explainable artificial intelligence for efficient data-driven decisions to improve welfare in livestock species
2nd Place- DAGEB-DIBAF
Impact of thermal stress on the reproductive performance of italian dairy cattle
3rd Place- Moo Power
A reporting system for small-scale farms: leveraging open data for grigio alpina cattle
Honourable Mentions
If you have any questions for our speakers about their presentations, please email us using the email below
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vHive Seminar and AI Hackathon Closing Ceremony
Hannah Rideout
