Abstract submission deadline: February 15, 2026
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated revolutionary potential in many sectors, and animal science is no exception. The organization of the second AI4animal science conference dedicated to this topic arises from the need to explore and leverage the opportunities offered by AI to improve efficiency, sustainability, and health and welfare in animal production. It is now well known that AI provides advanced tools to monitor and manage livestock farming activities more precisely and promptly. The analysis of data collected through sensors, IoT devices, and other technologies allows optimizing the nutrition, health, and welfare of animals, reducing waste and operational costs. One of the main challenges of modern agriculture is, to reduce environmental impact. AI can transform these challenges into opportunities through advanced data-analysis and decision support that minimize the use of natural resources and improve waste management, while simultaneously promoting more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices.
This 2-day conference, organized by EAAP, ILVO, KU-Leuven and the University of Gent will offer a unique opportunity to showcase and discuss the newest developments in the field of AI for animal science. Through the scientific sessions, we aim to bring together researchers in AI for animal science, but also animal scientists, industry stakeholders and livestock sector partners with an interest in the future potential of AI in livestock farming. Focus will be on raising awareness of the importance and practical applications, but also challenges, of AI in animal husbandry. Through parallel scientific sessions and a plenary session, participants will be able to discuss and deepen their fundamental and applied knowledge and skills. It is well known that integrating AI into animal husbandry requires collaboration between different disciplines, including engineering, data science, computer science, biology, and, of course, animal husbandry. The AI4animal science conference represents an ideal platform to facilitate the exchange of ideas and collaboration among experts from various fields, promoting an integrated and multidisciplinary approach.
In conclusion, the organization of the AI4animal science conference addresses the need to tackle current and future challenges in animal husbandry through the adoption of advanced technologies. AI has the potential to profoundly transform the sector, improving efficiency, sustainability, and animal welfare, and the workshop aims to be the starting point for this transformation.
Wednesday 4th June 2025 - 14:00 - 18:00
Session A: Ethics and Industry Adoption of AI in Animal Science: Addressing practical implications and challenges, including bias and data ownership, as well as industry implementations of AI
Session B: Emerging AI Applications in Precision Livestock Farming: Innovations in generative AI, digital twins, large language models (LLMs), big data, and robotics
Thursday 5th June 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00
Plenary Session
Invited Speakers:
AI-Driven Pathways for Intelligent Disease Diagnosis in Livestock Animals
China Agricultural University (China)
Intelligent Control and Robotics for Precision Livestock Farming
Wageningen University (Netherlands)
Thursday 5th June 2025 - 14:00 - 18:00
Session C: Advancements in Data Collection and Integration: Exploring cutting-edge sensors, multi-sensor systems, data labelling, and tools driving animal science innovation
Session D: Efficient AI Modeling and Data Processing: Tools, algorithms, and workflows for scalable AI solutions
Friday 6th June 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00
Session E: Advancing Digital Biomarkers with AI: Breakthroughs in animal identification, health and welfare monitoring, behavior analysis, and remote sensing technologies
Session F: AI for Research and Farm Management: Leveraging AI to address research challenges in various animal science disciplines and improve informed decision-making
IDELE (France)
University of Georgia (United States)
Utrecht University (Netherlands)
City University of Hong Kong - CityU (China)
Agroscope (Switzerland)
Vetmeduni (Austria)
ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
UW-Madison (United States)
ILVO (Belgium)
Research Institute of Animal Science, HAO-Demeter (Greece)
ILVO (Belgium)
ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
Natural Resources Institute Finland - Luke (Finland)
You can easily find here a list of hotels and accommodations in the heart of Zurich, as well as near ETH Zurich campus where the workshop will be held. Enjoy convenient options for combining both business and leisure days in this vibrant city.
Tomás Norton is an agricultural engineer specialising in Sustainable Precision Livestock Farming (PLF). He is an associate professor at KU Leuven with a Ph.D. in Biosystems Engineering from University College Dublin. He is a Fellow of Institute of Agricultural Engineers, the International Academy of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineers, and the Royal Society of Biology. He teaches modelling of biosystems and sustainable PLF, and leads a research team focusing on PLF technology development for data-driven monitoring and management of farm animal behaviour, health and welfare. He serves in editorial and professional society leadership roles to serve the research community and advance the science in precision livestock farming.
Jeroen Degroote is an Assistant Professor at Ghent University, Belgium, where he leads the monogastric nutrition research team within the Laboratory for Animal Nutrition and Animal Product Quality (LANUPRO). He obtained his Ph.D. in Bioscience Engineering in 2019 with a dissertation on the digestive physiology of weaned piglets. His current research combines expertise in digestive physiology in pigs and poultry with data science. More specifically, his team focuses on integrating monitoring systems such as electronic feeders, weighing devices, wearable sensors, and computer vision with mechanistic and data-driven models to refine nutritional models, aiming to improve nutrient utilization and enhance animal health and welfare. This includes experimental work with weaned piglets and studies with heat stressed broilers. Degroote teaches courses in pig and poultry nutrition, animal production systems, and precision livestock farming.
Jarissa Maselyne is coordinating the Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) research group of ILVO (Flanders research institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Belgium). She is also President of the PLF-commission at EAAP and editor for the journal Animal.
She is a Master of Science in Electromechanical Engineering (Ghent University), and PhD graduate in Bioscience Engineering (KU Leuven & ILVO).
Jarissa has been involved in several H2020 projects related to Internet of Things (IOF2020), High Performance Computing (CYBELE) and Renewable Energy (RES4LIVE) for livestock farming. She is coordinating the Horizon Europe project aWISH and the national VLAIO project PigID with her team. aWISH deals with large-scale automated animal welfare monitoring of broilers and pigs through novel sensors and AI algorithms at the slaughterhouse, to measure welfare indicators tracing back to the farm, catching, transport and slaughter process itself. PigID is focused on helping pig farmers start with electronic identification and quantifying the added value of individual pig management. Other running projects include XGain, PIGWEB, EU-LI-PHE, agrifoodTEF, digital twin for pigs, etc. The PLF team at ILVO thus deals with topics from research over innovation to industry adoption, and from sensors over AI and digital twins to informed decision making for farmers and other stakeholders.
Matti Pastell is a Research professor in Future Farming technologies in the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). He has been working on AI in agriculture and precision livestock farming applications for over 15 years. He is working on sensor-based welfare assessment of dairy cattle, sensor-based phenotyping and developing digital twins of farming systems. He is currently coordinating the case studies of the Digi4Live project https://digi4live.eu/ .
Mutian Niu is an Assistant Professor of Animal Nutrition at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, since June 2021, following prior appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and Farmer’s Business Network, Inc. His research is dedicated to advancing sustainable animal agriculture, with a focus on ruminant nutrition, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, nitrogen utilization efficiency, data science applications, and precision livestock farming.
At ETH Zurich, he oversees a comprehensive mentorship program, supervising postdoctoral researchers, doctoral candidates, and Master’s and Bachelor’s thesis projects in areas such as methane mitigation, nutrient efficiency, and development of technilogies to monitor and improve animal welfare.
Secretary-General for both the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) and the World Association for Animal Production (WAAP).
Andrea holds degrees in Animal Sciences from the University of Perugia (Italy) and advanced qualifications, including an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Animal Genetics from the University of Nebraska (USA). He began his career at the Italian Association of Animal Breeders, later becoming National Technical Manager. He also led the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) for 11 years. Andrea has coordinated two EU-funded research projects and contributed to over 20 others. He co-founded four animal science journals and has lectured in over 40 countries. He is also author of numerous research articles and dissemination pieces, in addition to writing book chapters centered on animal science. His work spans animal production, genetics, and sustainability, with a strong focus on global collaboration.
EAAP Senior EU project manager
I have worked for public (National Research Council of Italy, European Commission, Ministry of University and Research) and private (Sapienza Innovazione, IPI) organizations. I have a long experience in managing international projects (7 EU projects, both in FP7 and Horizon 2020 coordinated), as well as in disseminating and exploiting project results. Within EAAP, I am responsible for the EU project Unit, which has been involved in 13 EU projects, mainly in charge of the project communication and dissemination activities.