Professor at NMBU from September 2017.

From 2012 to 2017 I was heading the farm animal section at NordGen, the Nordic Genetic Resurce Center www.nordgen.org.

Before 2012 I was senior scientist at Aarhus University, Denmark. 

It is the aim of my scientific work to contribute to the development of theory and methods used for genetic improvement, in particular to contribute to developments of a profitable and sustainable animal production, which takes the welfare and health of farm animals and consumer demands into account. More specifically it is the aim to

• contribute to the understanding of genetic variation in traits of importance for an efficient and profitable production of farm animals, as well as traits of importance for the welfare and health of the animals
• contribute to theory on optimal structures and decision rules used in breeding schemes.
• contribute to the implementation of optimal breeding schemes in the breeding industries by education of students and through cooperation internationally, nationally and with the relevant industries.

Current activities

- Genetic diversity in a feral population of the Norwegian Coastal goat, based on SNP genotypes.

- Develop optimal contribution selection to simulataneously optimise contributions for several groups (age classes).

- Meta-analysis of characterisation studies on Nordic native livestock breeds.

- Genetic variation in recombination in pigs, dairy cattle and salmon (PhD Cathrine Brekke)

- Use of individual daily feed intake to detect/quantify stress in growing pigs (MSc Andrew 
Heggli)

- Course responsible: Animal Breeding Schemes HFA300

- EM-ABG contact for NMBU

- Member of reference group for developing a national Norwegian strategy for genetic resources

- Board member for the Research program Havbruk2