Prof. Niamh O’Connell leads a farm animal behaviour and welfare research programme.  Her team includes research scientists Maeve Palmer, Mary Baxter and Mairead Campbell, and postgraduate students.  Niamh has specific expertise in applied, on-farm research, and much of her programme is funded by agri-food companies.  One of her research themes focusses on the welfare of poultry, and, in particular, on designing optimum housing environments.  This work has underpinned changes in production practice both locally and internationally, and formed an impact case study in REF 2021 (where QUB ranked joint first in the UK for Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Science).  Niamh is also involved in commercially-funded research to develop novel biocidal products for the agri-food sector.  She also has a strong interest in developing new methods of assessing animal welfare, and is currently working with ECIT colleagues to develop novel machine vision tools (FlockFocus project).

Niamh has published over 80 peer-reviewed papers, was a member of the EU Platform on Animal Welfare and a Hearing Expert for EFSA, and is a frequent invited speaker and industry advisor on farm animal welfare.  

Prof O'Connell teaches across different undergraduate and post graduate programmes and co-ordinates the final year undergraduate module in Farm Animal Health and Welfare (BIO3106).