Felicity Ann Huntingford - Curriculum Vitae#

SYNOPSIS OF EDUCATION:

• 1962 - 1966 Godolphin School, Salisbury
  
• 1967 - 1970 St Hilda’s College, Oxford (Nuffield Scholar)
  
• 1970 - 1973 St Hilda’s College and Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford
  

QUALIFICATIONS:

• B.A. (Hons) Zoology, Oxon. First Class (1970)
  
• D.Phil. Oxon. (1973)
  

SUPERVISION OF RESEARCH STUDENTS:

I have supervised 35 doctoral students, all of whom have gained their doctorates and all of whom moved on to jobs related to their postgraduate training, and also numerous Masters students. I have acted as external examiner for more than 40 PhD students and as external examiner for several taught masters courses.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

I have more than 40 years’ experience of research into the behaviour of fish and other aquatic organisms, in the laboratory, in the field and in aquaculture systems. My research has been supported by numerous funding agencies, including BBSRC, EC and NERC and has resulted in some 210 scientific articles, 2 full length monographs and 3 edited books. I am actively involved in learned societies (both national and international) concerned with the study of behaviour and with fish biology. I also have a long-standing interest in the welfare of animals, both farmed and those used for scientific research, having sat on the Ethical Committee of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour and having helped to draft the Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Behavioural Research.

Major research themes illustrated in the previous list of publications include:

Individual differences in behavioural and physiological responses to challenge: Starting with my PhD thesis, the main publication arising from which (Huntingford 1976c) is still extensively cited, I have a long-standing interest in consistent individual differences in behaviour and physiology, their causes and their implications for health, for welfare and for how animals response to environmental change. The importance of such stress coping styles is increasingly recognised in behavioural, physiological and ecological research.

Strategies for resource acquisition and life history variation in salmonid fish: Stemming from my interest in individual differences, I have been involved in a number of theoretical and empirical studies of life history variation in salmonid fishes and how these relate to early differences in competitive ability and resource acquisition. Several of these (e.g. Huntingford et al. 1988, Metcalfe et al. 1989, Thorpe et al. 1992, 1998) have also been well cited.

Welfare of fish: Since my research interests include aggression and anti-predator interactions, I have been extensively involved in discussion of the ethical issues raised by behavioural research. This has included advising on formulation of the 1986 Animals (Scientific Purposes) Act and on developing the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour’s Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Behavioural Research (later adopted by the Fisheries Society of the British Isles (FSBI). Huntingford 1984b, 1992). Given this background, I was invited by the FSBI to put together a team to write a Briefing Paper (Huntingford et al. 2002) and subsequently a review on fish welfare (Huntingford et al. 2007), both of which have been very highly cited (if controversial). The implication of stress coping style for the welfare of fish continues to be an active research interest.

Behaviour and aquaculture: Since the mid 1980s, motivated by a belief that publically-funded research should where possible address issues of economic importance, a major research interest has been to use our fundamental understanding of fish behaviour to improve production and welfare in fish culture. This has proved a very productive research theme; selected relevant publications include: Thorpe et la. 1992a, Smith et al. 1993, Kadri et al. 1995, 1996, Adams et al. 1995a, 1998, 2007 and Turnbull et al. 2005. Most recently, I have edited a mutli-author book on Behavior and Aquaculture and contributed two articles to a special issue of Aquaculture Economics & Management reporting on a multidisciplinary project on The Economic Costs & Benefits of Fish Welfare Management.

REFEREEING AND EDITING:

I regularly review books and manuscripts for international journals, including the following: Advances in the Study of Behaviour, American Naturalist, Animal Behaviour, Aquaculture and Fisheries Management, Behaviour, Behavioural Ecology, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, Behavioural Processes, Brain and Behavioural Science, Canadian J. Zoology, Environmental Biology of Fishes, Ethology, J. Comparative Psychology, J. Fish Biology, J. Exp. Marine Biol. Ecology, J. Natural History, Nature, Parasitology, Proceedings of the Royal Society (Series B ), Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, Tropical Zoology and Transactions of the Fisheries Society of America. In addition, between 1986 - 1991 I acted as European Editor for the journal Animal Behaviour, the major international journal in my field and between 2002 and 2008 I served as Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Biology and Physiology and Behaviour.

FUNDING AGENCIES:

I have extensive experience of the peer review process for grant applications and reports for funding bodies in the UK and abroad and currently serve on the assessment panel for ERC Advanced Grants. I have also served on assessment panels for academic appointments in a number of European universities.