Moy Park director appointed honorary professor at Queen’s College
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Ursula Lavery, technical and R&D director Europe at Moy Park, Northern Eire’s largest private-sector employer and one in every of Europe’s largest rooster processors has been made an honorary professor at Queen’s College, Belfast.
She can be at the moment vice chairperson of commerce physique, the NI Meals and Drink Affiliation (NIFDA).
A Queen’s College graduate in Meals Science, Ursula is a well known and revered thought chief. In addition to partnering on a sequence of scientific-research publications, she has introduced that analysis to bear extra carefully on the native agrifood business.
She has labored carefully with IGFS for the previous decade, together with Professor Chris Elliott OBE, serving to develop a safer food-supply system for animal feed on the island of Eire through the Meals Fortress challenge.
She has additionally partnered with Professor Niamh O’Connell on a sequence of initiatives aimed toward enhancing rooster welfare, leading to main adjustments to poultry manufacturing and worldwide, welfare pointers. This ongoing work – next-generation broiler welfare by way of good expertise and AI – will type a key challenge led by Queen’s underneath the Digital Well being And Agrifood pillar of the Belfast Area Metropolis Deal.
Professor Lavery’s monitor file in selling animal well being contains devoted efforts to decreasing Campylobacter in poultry manufacturing, for which she gained a significant award from Waitrose in 2015, in addition to a dedication to decreasing antimicrobials in farmed animals and he or she is a founding member of the Meals Industrial Initiative on Antimicrobials.
She sits on a variety of boards together with that of IGFS and the AgriFood Quest Competence Centre, which connects agrifood companies in NI with universities and analysis; and serves on the Meals Business Liaison Group of the Meals Requirements Company NI. She can be a non-executive director of the Centre of Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), a UK physique established underneath the (UK) Authorities’s Agri-tech Technique, and of the supervisory board of GS1 UK, which seeks to use worldwide requirements through barcodes to client items, healthcare merchandise and extra.
Over time, Professor Lavery has been singled out for a sequence of business awards together with a NIFDA Award for Excellent Management throughout Covid-19; ‘Worldwide Director of the Yr’ from the NI Institute of Administrators in 2021; and a Girls in Enterprise management award in 2016.
Commenting on the appointment, director of IGFS Professor Nigel Scollan mentioned: “Ursula Lavery is very regarded domestically, nationally and internationally. She brings invaluable expertise within the space of meals security, meals high quality, meals microbiology, meals requirements and laws.
“This expertise will present a further dimension to IGFS and the Faculty of Organic Sciences, each in mentoring the following technology of agrifood professionals and partnering in analysis and innovation programmes.”
Professor Lavery mentioned: “It’s a nice privilege to obtain this honour from the college. Queen’s and the Institute for World Meals Safety have performed a key function each in analysis and improvement and cultivating future leaders inside our business.
“Agrifood is one in every of our most fun and dynamic industries and in my function as Professor of Observe I look ahead to supporting researchers and college students as they discover new alternatives and challenges.
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