John is originally from a farm in Co. Roscommon and now lives in Fermoy, Co. Cork where he works with Teagasc in the Moorepark Research Centre.

He graduated from UCD with an MVB and a PhD in Veterinary Medicine, and is a Veterinary Council of Ireland accredited Veterinary Practitioner and a European College Specialist in bovine health. He has over 25 years’ experience in leading dairy and beef, cow and calf, health, welfare and reproduction research programmes.

John has worked in research institutes, universities, the Department of Agriculture and in private veterinary practice in Ireland, New Zealand and in Australia. His current research interests include dairy cow and calf herd health and fertility and beef herd health. His research work has been published in over 75 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks. He also reviews for over 20 leading international bioscience journals and serves on the editorial boards of five scientific journals, including the Irish Veterinary Journal BioMed Central (Deputy Editor).

John is a member of five Technical Working Groups with AHI and is happy to be involved with the work of AHI because he firmly subscribes to the principle of an industry-led, national approach to improving animal health in Ireland.

Bosco is originally from Naas, Co. Kildare and is currently based there. He is currently the Technical Manager for Intervet/Schering Plough Animal Health. He has a MVB degree from UCD and a MRCVS. In 2011 he completed a MVM in “Aspects of Bovine Herpesvirus 1 and Bovine Virus Diarrhoea Virus infection in beef and dairy herds in the Republic of Ireland”. He worked for two and a half years in general veterinary practice before joining Intervet Ireland Ltd. as technical advisor. Recently he has been involved in a nationwide seroprevalence study on BVD and IBR which will yield interesting results on these diseases through peer reviewed publications. Bosco is happy to be involved with AHI because he has been trained extensively on disease management and this experience has been further enhanced with 15 years technical support for veterinary practices throughout Ireland.

Luke is originally from Glasgow in Scotland. He graduated from Glasgow Veterinary School in 2003 (BVMS) and after a short period in general practice he undertook an internship within the large animal clinical studies department at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in University College Dublin. In 2005 he then embarked on a European College of Bovine Health Management residency-training programme. In 2007 he took up his current role as a lecturer in Population Medicine within the unit of Herd and Veterinary Public Health at UCD. In 2008, he attained further specialist qualifications by receiving a diploma from the European College in Bovine Health Management. Luke has an interest in all aspects of herd health and his research areas include the creation and delivery of dairy herd health management systems, disease investigation strategies, simulation modelling, animal health economics and veterinary education. He is currently a member of several Animal Health Ireland technical working groups working to develop control programmes for infectious diseases and mastitis.

Michael grew up on a dairy farm near Bandon in Co. Cork, where he now breeds Limousin cattle in his “spare” time. After qualifying in 1992 from UCD, Michael returned to Cork, where he has been in practice ever since, apart for a few months in mixed practice in the Hunter valley, NSW, Australia.

He is a partner in the Riverview Veterinary Group, where he works with ten other colleagues in mixed dairy/small animal practice and has a special interest in bovine infectious diseases. He was until recently, Chairman, director and technical director of an independent animal health laboratory (AHLI Ltd) and helped it gain the internationally recognised ISO17025 accreditation standard for BVD and Johne’s testing.

Michael was a former president of Veterinary Ireland, the representative body for vets in Ireland. He also sits on the Advisory Committee of the Veterinary Defence Society which provides indemnity cover for veterinary surgeons in practice.

George is originally from Co. Laois. He is currently working with Teagasc as a Dairy Specialist based at Oak Park in Carlow. He graduated from UCD with a B. Agr. Sc. (1^st Hons) in 1990, and completed two Masters Degrees in Facilitation Skills and Reproductive Physiology at UCD. He joined Teagasc in 1993 and liaises between research and the extension services.  His Masters Degrees complement his specialisms in Teagasc where he focuses on dairy cow reproduction and facilitation skills training.

Stephen Conroy is a committee member on the IBR and Bio-security technical working groups. He is originally from a large suckler beef (180 cows) and sheep (450 ewes) farm in Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath and still plays an active role in the running of the farm.

Stephen Conroy is a committee member on the IBR and Bio-security technical working groups. He is originally from a large suckler beef (180 cows) and sheep (450 ewes) farm in Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath and still plays an active role in the running of the farm.

He qualified with a BAgSc (Hons) (Animal and Crop Production) in 2005 from UCD and completed a PhD in “The relationship of live animal muscular and skeletal scores, ultrasound measurements and carcass classification scores with carcass composition and value”. Upon completion of his PhD he went to work for the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation where he is currently the manager of the G€N€ IR€LAND Beef breeding programme and Tully performance test centre, located in Kildare Town, Co. Kildare.

One of his main roles is to help maximise genetic gain in beef through the G€N€ IR€LAND programme. This involves working closely with various Industry partners. One of the main objectives of the G€N€ IR€LAND program is to identify and progeny test the best young maternal and terminal beef bulls each year across all the beef breeds.

“Herd health plays an important role in the selection of these young bulls as only bulls from high health status herds are selected”.

Pat is originally from a sheep , suckler and trout farm in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny. He has been living in Durrow, Co Laois since 2016 and previously lived in Wicklow Town. He qualified as a Veterinary Surgeon from UCD in 1989 and gained a certificate in Pig Medicine from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 2001. Pat has practised veterinary medicine in the pig & poultry sectors as a specialist advisor since 1998. He is past President of Veterinary Ireland, the representative organisation for Vets in Ireland. He has practised in cattle, sheep, small animal, equine, state and meat industries throughout his veterinary career. He has a key interest in biosecurity as it applies to pig and poultry production and how lessons learned in these industries can be transferred to the cattle sector, particularly at this time of Dairy-Herd expansion.  

John is originally from Tralee, Co.Kerry.

He is a Senior Research Officer with the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, Backweston. He graduated from UCD Veterinary School (MVB) in 1989 and attained a diploma in Toxicology from Trinity College and membership of the National and European Register of Toxicologists. After nine years in general practice, he spent twelve years in the Regional Veterinary laboratory Service in diagnostics and disease investigation.

He is currently tasked with development of Biosecurity and the laboratory infrastructure for response to exotic disease outbreak. Johns main interests are Diagnostics, Disease investigation, Toxicology and Biosecurity.

He has recently joined Animal Health Ireland to assist the Biosecurity Technical Working Group.

After completing his veterinary studies in UCD in 2002, Eoin worked in mixed practice in Co. Meath, then in 2004 moved to the Pirbright Institute, UK, where he did a PhD on foot-and-mouth disease with the Royal Veterinary College. In Pirbright, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher and then returned to Ireland at the end of 2007 to work in Pathology Division in the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory. Eoin obtained an MSc in veterinary epidemiology and public health with the Royal Veterinary College and in 2012 moved to Rome, where he worked for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation on the control of foot-and-mouth disease. Currently, Eoin works in Virology Division in the Central Veterinary Research Institute, Backweston.

Conor is originally from a dairy farm in Dromore, Co. Tyrone and qualified as a veterinary surgeon from UCD School of Veterinary Medicine in 2011. He worked in mixed practice in Strabane, Co. Tyrone, before returning to UCD in 2013 to begin a PhD programme on Johne’s Disease (JD) in Irish dairy herds as part of the ICONMAP project. Since then he has published several peer-reviewed scientific papers on JD including the application of HACCP principles to control as well as the effect of the disease on milk production. He is currently involved in studies investigating national prevalence and risk factors for the disease, as well as the application of sociology to enhance JD interventions at herd level. Conor has completed a 3 year veterinary specialist training programme for the European College of Bovine Health Management with a primary focus on dairy herd health and production management. His interests include infectious diseases of cattle, calf health and the application of quantitative epidemiology and sociology to farm investigations and interventions. He was recently appointed as Lecturer in Bovine Health Management at the School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD.