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Carrie Ijichi

Senior Lecturer

School of Animal Rural & Environmental Sciences

Staff Group(s)
Animal and Equine

Role

Dr Ijichi is a Senior Lecturer for the Equine courses at NTU. She teaches on Equine Behaviour & Welfare, Research Skills for Scientists and Emerging Issues, Ethics & Welfare.

Career overview

Dr Ijichi graduated with a BMus from Queen’s University Belfast in 2007. After experiencing problems behaviour with her horse, and unable to find an ethical, evidence-based trainer to help, she undertook her MSc in Animal Behaviour & Welfare with the intention of becoming an ethical horse trainer within Northern Ireland. However, the process of completing her dissertation instilled a love of research and the scientific process and she realised she could help more animals by finding answers to their welfare challenges. Whilst undertaking private behaviour consultations and volunteering as an advisor to a welfare charity, she completed her PhD on how personality in horses is associated with different responses to stress. This led to the first study showing that animals react differently to pain, depending on their personality. In addition, she also explored how personality might explain whether or not an animal becomes stereotypic when their welfare needs are not met. Following PhD study, Dr Ijichi contributed to a large scale study on chicken production and welfare before taking up a position as Senior Lecturer at Hartpury University. Here she taught behaviour, welfare and ethics related subjects whilst also designing and overseeing the delivery of support that was shown to boost well-being and performance amongst students. She is now a Senior Lecturer in Equine Science and will bring this passion for student well-being and achievement to her teaching in equine welfare and behaviour, scientific skills and ethics.

Research areas

Dr Ijichi has several research interests, primarily focused on the welfare of animals, in particular horses. This involves investigating how we can understand when they are in pain more accurately, causes of stereotypic behaviour, training methods that cause welfare concerns, personality and how animals cope with stress during handling. The focus is on developing ethical, sustainable training and management practices that allow animals to thrive based in a deep understanding of their individual needs and how they communicate that these have not been met.

Current PhD Students:

Louise Evans (2021) Learning on the Blink: Spontaneous eye blink rate as a predictor  of adaptive  learning in an equine model (VC Bursary)

Previous PhD students:

Aurelie Jolivald  (2017) An Investigation into Physiological Correlate of Equine Personality

External activity

Dr Ijichi has reviewed for journals such as Animal Behaviour, Applied Animal Behaviour Science and Animals. She is a member of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, The International Society for Equitation Science and the Animal Welfare Research Network. She was twice been an invited speaker at Cambridge University and also The University of Zurich. Her research has been covered in Horse and Hound, Your Horse and The Horse magazines.