Alistair Lawrence

Alistair Lawrence is Professor of Animal Behaviour and Welfare at Scotland's Rural College and the Roslin Institute (University of Edinburgh). His research focuses on positive animal welfare, brain health, and emotional states in farm animals. Lawrence pioneered rat tickling techniques to induce positive emotions and created www.positiveanimalwelfare.net to disseminate welfare science.

Major research areas:

• Neurobiological basis of positive welfare states
• Environmental enrichment strategies
• Play behavior and emotional development
• Brain health across species

Recent publications establish consensus definitions for positive welfare, examine neural mechanisms of enrichment, and develop welfare assessment frameworks. His £1.5M+ grant portfolio includes funding from BBSRC, NC3Rs, and Scottish Government.