Affective Ethologist: Chicken Welfare Phenotyping

Location: Remote and Partner US & EU Sites (project-dependent split)
Compensation: $50K–$90K USD, depending on experience and time commitment (ideally, full-time)
Organization: Nonprofit – Genetics for Animal Welfare

About the Role:

We’re breeding chickens for improved welfare - birds less likely to experience excess distress such as chronic pain and anxiety. We partner with large-scale breeding programs. To be clear, this does not involve gene editing, only selective breeding.

We’re looking for a scientist who can turn welfare goals into practical, measurable phenotypes in chickens and prioritize them in a way that leads to actionable selection protocols that balance traits across welfare indexes. That includes designing challenge tests, behavioral assays, and physiological measures of possible pain and other affective states, integrating precision poultry farming tools (e.g. sensors, video, audio) when appropriate. You will also have access to large existing datasets (farm audits, carcass and production data, sensor streams) to test ideas and extract welfare insights.

This role is ideal for someone who studies the biological and behavioral consequences of affective states and can work within the practical constraints of commercial breeding programs.

Key Responsibilities:
 

• Design and validate behavioral and physiological assays that reflect welfare-relevant traits (e.g. fearfulness, gait scoring/nociception, stress resilience).

• Create challenge tests or structured protocols (e.g. novel object tests, tonic immobility, runway tests) that can be used in real-world breeding settings.

• Evaluate the potential use and implementation of precision livestock farming tools and machine learning, including video, acoustic (e.g. vocalization analysis), and biometric sensors.

• Define standard operating procedures for consistent phenotyping across breeding environments (e.g. barns, aviaries, or colony cages).

• Conditional on a project, publish high-quality research articles in peer-reviewed journals and present findings at conferences and workshops.

• Interview or give other feedback on prescreened prospective teammates.

Qualifications:

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Note: These are ideal. You don’t need to have them all to be a great fit.

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• MSc or PhD in Animal Welfare Science, Ethology, Poultry Science, Behavioral Neuroscience, or a related discipline, with relevant peer-reviewed publications.

• Experience designing or validating behavioral or physiological assays in poultry (chickens strongly preferred).

• Familiarity with the neurobiology of nociception and stress (HPA axis), affective behavior, social behavior, and welfare monitoring in chickens; knowledge of key welfare issues (e.g. injurious pecking, keel bone damage, footpad dermatitis, heat stress, smothering).

• Exposure to or experience with precision poultry farming tools (computer vision for tracking/pose/gait, acoustic monitoring, RFID/UWB, accelerometers, infrared thermography, environmental sensors) and automated scoring/ML pipelines.

• Experience with statistics and mixed models (e.g. R/Python) is a plus.

• Ability to work in interdisciplinary teams, translate welfare ideas into measurable, field-ready outputs, and collaborate with commercial breeding companies.

• Strong documentation and communication skills; scientific integrity and clarity are essential.

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We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital, veteran, or disability status.
 

Apply here.​​

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