CENTAUR Affiliate Faculty
Cross-Campus Faculty Affiliates
Focusing her research on companion animal neurophysiology and neurological diseases, Dr. Bergamasco has been involved in several research projects in Switzerland at the University of Bern and in other studies in collaboration with the Section of Clinical Animal Neurology of Helsinki University in Finland, and with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture Academy of Wroclaw in Poland. Dr. Bergamasco has also been involved in research projects on the neurophysiology of behavior in companion and farm animals, as well as welfare of shelter dogs.
Her teaching activity has included core courses on veterinary physiology as well as courses on neurophysiology of behavior and behavioral endocrinology. She currently teaches several classes on companion animals, animal behavior, and welfare.
Dr. Bergamasco is author of more than one hundred publications; reviewer of scientific journals such as Physiology and Behavior, Journal of Animal Science, and Journal of Applied Animal Welfare; and she has served in several professional workshops and community educational events on companion animal behavior and welfare.
Erica is an Assistant Professor in Animal & Poultry Sciences where she teaches, researches, and conducts extension activities about domestic animal behavior and welfare. She is trained as an applied animal behaviorist and behavior analyst, focusing mostly on domestic dogs but also working with horses, cats, and other domestic or captive species. Her research has several dimensions: First, how dogs learn and how to enhance humane training techniques. Second, she investigates which human interactions dogs prefer and how people can use those to enhance their relationship with dogs and training techniques. Third, she is interested in identifying effective predictors of and treatment techniques for behavioral issues, such as separation anxiety. Finally, she studies shelter dog welfare and what interventions improve welfare and adoptions, including different types of fostering. She is a co-founder of the Institute for Shelter Dogs and her extension work helps shelters implement science-based interventions, improve shelter dog behavior, and improve organizational interactions. Through her extension appointment, she works with the public, owners, and other trainers to learn more about domestic animal behavior, how to read their animals’ body language, and how to help their animal behave in more desirable ways.
Leonie’s educational background and work experience fits well with CENTAUR’s mission and activities. Her field of study (production animal welfare) includes human-animal interactions and is applicable to interdisciplinary topics such as sustainability and one health. Her research and extension appointment allows her to be involved with discovery and engagement related to human-animal relationships. Her teaching focuses on animal welfare; she is co-teaching an APSC course on animal welfare and bioethics (APSC3334). She is also developing a 4000-level course on animal welfare assessments, partly as preparation or students to compete in the intercollegiate AVMA animal welfare judging competition.
Her work is focused on multifaceted aspects of production animal welfare, with the objective to improve the welfare status of these animals. This could be through management, education and training. Her work is not limited to species or production phase or species, however most of the work is aimed towards broiler chickens and turkeys during production and at time of killing (either euthanasia or pre-slaughter phase). She is interested in the human-animal interactions related to animal production, including training efficacy, industry stakeholder perceptions and consumer behavior. Her work is characterized by applied research and extension, looking into practical solutions for issues the industry is dealing with, including sharing knowledge and translating scientific research into applicable tools.
Dr. Mercadante has a DVM, MS in Animal Molecular and Cellular Biology, and MS in Agribusiness. She has experience with large animals, specifically dairy cows working as consultant and, later, as Market Developer in the industry. Currently she is an Academic & Student Advisor and is pursuing a PhD in Animal & Poultry Sciences. As Student Advisor she guides the Animal & Poultry Sciences undergraduate students for academic excellency also mentoring them to achieve their full potential and readiness for life after college. Her research investigates the human-animal interaction and its effects on animal behavior and neurophysiology, focusing mostly on domestic dogs but also looking at mice as a model for neurological activities.
Dr. Amy Nelson (Associate Professor, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences) is a historian of modern Russia who has been working in the interdisciplinary field of animal studies (sometimes called “human-animal studies”) since the field’s inception at the turn of the century. She is interested in collaborative projects that situate human-animal interactions in broader social or historical contexts using methodologies from the humanities and social sciences as well as ethology and evolutionary biology. Her interest in how animals have helped shape human histories have led her to pursue a range of projects, from studies of the emergence of animal advocacy groups in Imperial Russia to pet-keeping practices in the Soviet period, and more recently, a collective biography of the dogs used by the Soviets to develop the manned spaceflight program. She has published extensively on these topics and is the editor of Other Animals: Beyond the Human in Russian Culture and History (Pittsburgh, 2010). An advocate of learner-centered and open pedagogies, she developed an undergraduate seminar on Deep History and Domestication for the University Honors program in 2013. She blogs at Sirius Reflections: History, Animals and Networked Learning.
Dr. Annie Pearce is an Associate Professor in the Myers-Lawson School of Construction. Her primary interests include the sustainability of the built environment and creating bioinclusive environments that promote synergy between and among humans and non-human species. Her research focuses on the design, construction, and rehabilitation of buildings and neighborhoods to promote bioinclusivity and better understand the effects of built environment features on humans and their companion species. Together with Dr. Virginia Buechner-Maxwell, she is the co-instructor of the BioBuild Studio, an interdisciplinary graduate class exploring the features and functions critical to the success of bioinclusive environments. She also facilitates service learning pedagogy to enhance bioinclusivity in the built environment, including the construction of winter shelters and feeding stations for feral cats and kennel enrichment for dogs, design and construction of a new building for colony cat housing at a local animal shelter, and the design and construction of a dog run and outdoor classroom for training beagles at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Her latest research explores heuristics for arrangement and configuration of existing shelter spaces to minimize acoustic stress for animal and human occupants of the space.