Conference Speakers

Mark grew up on a sheep and beef cattle farm on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. He started his career in animal science with AgResearch, studying reproductive physiology of red deer at a time deer were still being live captured for farming from the wild and domestication was a real-time experiment. His work extends beyond specific species, exploring the broader philosophical and ethical considerations of animal welfare. Mark has served on the NZ National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, the Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching, and the Bioethics Council, and was a president of the NZ Society of Animal Production. He’s the author of two books, including the seminal text Animal Welfare Science, Husbandry and Ethics and has a private consultancy firm, Kotare Bioethics, specialising in ethical evaluations in science and farming.

Jenny has built a distinguished career at DairyNZ where she has collaborated with multiple internal and external partners to deliver numerous programmes. She has held senior leadership roles, including spending seven years in the DairyNZ Strategy and Investment team contributing to sector strategy development, and working closely with many dairy and cross sector organisations, and currently is Interim General Manager - Research & Science. She has served on the International Dairy Federation standing committees for farm management and animal health and welfare. Jenny is highly respected nationally and internationally for her scientific expertise in farm systems, milking efficiency, animal welfare, the application of digital technology to animal management, and workplace productivity. She has expertise in pastoral automatic milking systems and the learning ability of dairy cattle, and developed milking routines to shorten milking times in conventional dairies.

Halter Founder and CEO Craig Piggott grew up on his family’s Waikato dairy farm. In 2016, after completing his Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Auckland, he took a role at the satellite launch company, Rocket Lab. Inspired by the innovation and investment into New Zealand’s space industry, Craig founded Halter with a vision to revolutionise the dairy industry. Now serving dairy and beef farms and ranches in New Zealand, Australia and the US, Halter’s mission is to empower farmers and ranchers to run more productive and sustainable operations while caring for their animals and the environment. Halter’s smart collars and app guide cattle around the farm, enable farmers to set virtual fences, precisely manage their pasture and monitor cows’ health and behaviour 24/7.
Craig now leads a team of 180 people across three markets. In 2024, the Deloitte Fast 50 Index named Halter the fastest growing company in New Zealand, and in the same year, Craig won the Tech & Emerging Industries category for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award programme.

David is the Elizabeth Creak Chair in Sustainable Agricultural Change at Harper Adams University (UK), one of the leading specialist institutions for agriculture and land management. He is the Director of the Centre for Social Science and Lead of the Engaging for Change research group, which explores how to include human and non-human stakeholders better in the co-design of change. With a Bachelors, Masters, and PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge, David has published over 80 papers in his ten-year career to date and undertook a Fulbright scholarship to Cornell University in 2023. He has written background reports and reviews for the OECD, FAO, UK Government, and other bodies on issues related to technology adoption, behaviour change, responsible innovation, skills, and mental wellbeing. He is one of the handling editors at The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension and at the Journal of Agromedicine.

Claudia Kamphuis received her MSc Animal Scientist from Wageningen in 2004, and her PhD at Utrecht University in 2010. After her PhD she worked at DairyNZ as a researcher focusing on automation and information technologies to reduce labor and improve farm profitability and productivity. Since 2016, she works as researcher at Wageningen Livestock Research, and she is the coordinator of the Expertise Team Data Science since 2024. Her work involves the use of high-dimensional longitudinal sensor data and time-series analysis to tackle the challenges within the dairy cattle domain, using tools and methodologies to retrieve new information related to animal health, and ICT methods to store, collect, and access these data, sometimes even real-time.