Rate My Professor Siobhan Abeyesinghe

Siobhan Abeyesinghe is Associate Professor in Animal Behaviour and Welfare Science at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), Veterinary Medicine, and Head of the RVC Animal Welfare Science and Ethics group since 2014. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Animal Science from the University of Newcastle in 1994, an MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare from the University of Edinburgh in 1995, and a PhD from the University of Bristol in 2000, which focused on developing a common currency welfare assessment for exposure to concurrent stressors using transport of poultry as a model. She holds a postgraduate certificate in Veterinary Education with distinction and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Following her PhD, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in poultry cognition with Prof Christopher Wathes. In 2005, she joined RVC as a postdoctoral researcher and, via an RCUK Fellowship awarded in 2008, was appointed to a lectureship in Animal Behaviour and Welfare Science in 2012.

Abeyesinghe's research specializations include poultry behaviour, cognition, and welfare; development and validation of welfare assessment protocols across species; humane slaughter methods, particularly for poultry; animal cognition such as self-control in hens and visual perception in chickens; welfare of deer during lairage and transport; social behaviour and cognition in pigs and poultry; prioritization of canine welfare issues; gas stunning of poultry; environmental management of injurious pecking in turkeys; welfare assessment in cage-free systems for hens; use of artificial intelligence and robotics for monitoring poultry health and welfare; ethics of animal use and management; and impacts of vision-loss on dog and owner quality of life. Key publications include Lawes-Johnson, A., Tak, M., Abeyesinghe, S.M. (2026) 'Untangling Animal-Based Production Narratives: A Review of UK’s Post-Brexit Policy Landscape' in British Food Journal; Abeyesinghe, S.M. et al. (2025) 'Stakeholder views on shifting UK chicken meat production to slower-growing broilers' in Frontiers in Animal Science; Pearce, J. et al. (2024) 'Classification of Behaviour in Conventional and Slow-Growing Strains of Broiler Chickens Using Tri-Axial Accelerometers' in Animals; and Nicol, C.J. et al. (2024) 'An Analysis of the Welfare of Fast-Growing and Slower-Growing Strains of Broiler Chicken' in Frontiers in Animal Science. She has received the Worshipful Company of Poulters' 2002 Poulters' Prize for a significant contribution to the poultry industry by demonstrating self-control in hens and twice won the James Bee RVC Staff teaching award, most recently for student-nominated 'Sensational Supervision' in 2024.