Speakers 2025

Dr Renee Willis BVSc PhD

Renee completed a Bachelor of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney in 2005 and holds a Doctor of Philosophy in animal welfare science from Murdoch University (2022).

After graduating as a vet, she worked in mixed and equine practices in Australia and the UK before working as an Australian Government Accredited Veterinarian (shipboard AAV) and PhD researcher. Renee’s doctoral research involved developing a suite of animal welfare indicators for monitoring and recording livestock welfare throughout the Australian livestock export supply chain. For her research, she followed several livestock consignments from farms and pre-export facilities in Australia, on livestock vessels and through to receival feedlot and slaughterhouse facilities.

In recent years, Renee spent time working on emergency animal disease responses for the Asia-Pacific region with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. She has ongoing research collaborations with Murdoch University and has been extensively involved in the formulation and delivery of shipboard stockpersons’ training materials for LiveCorp and the Livestock Export RD&E Program.

Renee is now working with Impetus Animal Welfare on livestock transport related projects for the World Organisation for Animal Health, and the livestock export research project Enhancing cattle welfare: bedding, lameness, and thermal comfort in live export.