Speaker bio page for Claire Wathes

Bio

Claire gained a first class degree in Zoology from the University of Birmingham followed, in 1978, by a PhD in dairy cow fertility at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Professor Eric Lamming. Before joining the Royal Veterinary College in 1994, she worked for 10 years as a lecturer, then as a reader in the Department of Anatomy, University of Bristol; obtaining a DSc from Bristol in 1990. This was followed by 4 years in a research post at the Babraham Institute.

At the RVC Claire has served on a variety of committees including a long spell as Chairman of the Graduate School Committee. As Head of the Reproduction and Development Group for 12 years from 1995-2007 she was active in promoting research in this area, which was assessed as internationally competitive in the last two Research Assessment Exercises. She also established an elective in Reproduction for final year veterinary students. Externally she was Chairman of the BBSRC Steering Committee on ARK-Genomics from 2000-2008 and a member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board Veterinary Advisory Committee between 1997 and 2006. She is currently a memmber of the Animal Sector Committee of the Knowledge Transfer Network. She was awarded the Research Medal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE) in 2006 with respect to her research on dairy cow fertility. In 2009 she was made a guest professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, China. She is a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society of England and of the Society of Biology.