Speaker bio page for Patricia Turner

Bio

Dr. Turner is Corporate Vice-President, Global Animal Welfare for Charles River Laboratories. In this role, she is responsible for assessing welfare risks and developing animal welfare policy and related training for the company’s sites in 21 countries around the world. On graduation from veterinary college, Turner worked as a mixed, predominantly food animal, practitioner in rural Ontario and she has also worked as a toxicologist in preclinical safety within the pharmaceutical industry. Turner is a University Professor Emerita at the University of Guelph where she worked previously as a tenured professor in the Department of Pathobiology. She was also Program Leader for Laboratory Animal Science and managed the university’s laboratory animal diagnostic pathology core. Her laboratory conducted research in the areas of gastrointestinal microbiome, antimicrobial resistance and applied animal welfare (e.g., on-farm euthanasia, depopulation, analgesia), and she taught comparative medicine and pathology, toxicology, and animal welfare. She continues to conduct research in animal welfare science with her research group at Charles River and graduate students at Guelph. Turner is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM), the American Board of Toxicology (ABT), and the European College of Animal Welfare and Behavioural Medicine (ECAWBM; specialising in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics). She has served on many national and international committees to develop policy for research and farm animal well-being, including the Code of Practice for Farmed Rabbits; the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Hatching Eggs, Breeders, Chickens, and Turkeys; the AVMA Panel on Depopulation; the U.S. National Research Council Guide to the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals; and the Canadian Council on Animal Care guidelines. Dr Turner served as WVA Councillor for International Discipline-Associated Organizations from 2008-2011, 2014-2017, and President -Elect from 2017-2020 and also served on the WVA Working Group on constitutional reform in 2012.