Ivan Campos Position/Title: M.Sc. email: camposi@uoguelph.ca Phone: Office: ANNU 016 LinkedIn

Short Biography

I'm a former PhD student. I pursued my degree working under the supervision of Dr. Flavio Schenkel in the Centre for Genetic Improvement of Livestock (CGIL), affiliated with the Department of Animal Biosciences. My contact with animal production and animal breeding started during my undergraduate at the University of São Paulo in Brazil (my homeland). In 2014 I had the opportunity to conduct research with Dr. Ricardo Ventura. It was at this time that my passion for Quantitative Genetics was sparked. Since then, I have become more interested in genetic evaluation towards improving animal production which led me to pursue graduate studies. 

About my project

Projected climatic changes, mostly the increase in temperature, leading to hotter summers and potential heat stress, will have a profound impact on livestock. For the dairy industry, where genetic selection has been widely implemented to select animals with higher productivity, this represents a major issue. In general, high-production cows do not cope well with environmental stressors, which can be translated into less heat-tolerant animals. This was the scope of my MSc and PhD thesis. The project was initially part of the research program Food from Thought, and then continued with support by the Resilience Dairy Genome (http://www.resilientdairy.ca). The project focused on delivering tools for superior identification of heat-tolerant cows. Therefore, it contributed towards the long-term goal of delivering novel breeding programs to select naturally better adapted livestock, with the ability to maintain robust fitness and production in the face of shifting environmental conditions.

My MSc and PhD thesis can be found at:

https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/items/edbd2668-00da-4dfb-83f7-daae1dbbbc13

https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/items/7161a9f9-23c6-47b8-99ff-cfc76bf970de