Prof. Dr. Kaspar BIENEFELD

Prof. Dr. Kaspar BIENEFELD has a Bachelor of Agricultural Science from Bonn University. He has a degree, Doctor of Philosophy, from Munich University; he has been working at Humboldt University since 1997. Dr. BIENEFELD currently works at the department Breeding & Behavior, of Bee Research Institute HohenNeuendorf as a director. Dr. BIENEFELD is currently involved in various projects spanning genome-wide association studies on disease resistance, establishing genomic selection for several traits of interest, long-term simulation studies for sustainable genetic progress in small populations, and cryopreservation of honey bee semen. Being one of the world-leading experts in honey bee breeding, he is involved in several honeybee breeding programs, especially for subspecies facing extinction in the Near East. He was/is the coordinator of various EU and national projects (e.g. SmartBees, with a budget of 6 Mio. Euro, which is the biggest EU-funded research project on the sustainability of beekeeping). His research resulted in over 250 journal articles and several books, and according to Web of Science, his average citations per item is 11.​

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Prof. Dr. Hakan SAGIRKAYA

​Prof. Dr. Hakan Sağırkaya is a distinguished academic in the Department of Reproduction and Artificial Insemination at Uludağ University Veterinary Faculty, Türkiye. He earned his DVM from Ankara University in 1993, an MSc in Biotechnology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1997, and a PhD in Reproduction and Artificial Insemination from Uludağ University in 2001. He became an Assistant Professor in 2004, an Associate Professor in 2006, and a full Professor in 2011 at Uludağ University. His teaching includes undergraduate courses such as Reproductive Biotechnology and postgraduate ones like Reproduction in Laboratory Animals and Assisted Reproductive Techniques. Sağırkaya specializes in in vitro and in vivo embryo production techniques, gamete cryobiology, cloning, and transgenic animal production, with significant work on oocyte maturation, embryo development, sperm cryopreservation, and reproductive interventions in “repeat breeder” cattle and small ruminants. He has authored dozens of peer-reviewed articles (including in SCI-indexed journals), has supervised multiple theses, and participates in national efforts to align reproductive biotechnologies with sustainable animal husbandry practices.

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Prof. Dr. Dominique FRANCOIS

​Prof. Dr. Dominique François is a senior researcher and agronomic engineer at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE), working within the Genetics and Breeding of Small Ruminants team (GeSPR) of the UMR GenPhySE unit in Toulouse. A graduate agronomist of ENSA Rennes (1981), François has devoted her career to the genetic improvement and sustainable breeding of sheep and goats, with a focus on quantitative genetics, genomic selection, and the integration of new biotechnologies into practical breeding schemes. Her research combines field data from French and international small-ruminant populations with advanced statistical modeling to enhance traits related to milk yield, meat quality, disease resistance, and overall robustness. She has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed articles, coordinated or participated in European and national projects on small-ruminant genetics, and actively collaborates with breeders’ associations to transfer research findings into applied selection programs. Through her work at INRAE GenPhySE, François plays a key role in linking fundamental animal genetics research with real-world breeding strategies that support productivity, animal welfare, and the adaptation of small-ruminant farming systems to changing environmental and market conditions.​​

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​Prof. Dr. Dariusz PIWCZYNSKI

Prof Dariusz Piwczyński, PhD, has been a member of the faculty at the Department of Animal Breeding and Biology at the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology since 1991. In 1996, he defended his doctoral thesis (Effects of the first stage of crossing displacing Suffolk rams x Polish Merino ewes in Zalesie), and in 2009, the Board of the Animal Breeding and Biology Department conferred on him the degree of doctor habilitatus in the field of agricultural sciences and the discipline of animal husbandry. Prof Piwczyński qualified for the postdoctoral examination based on his postdoctoral dissertation, “Improvement of production traits in the Polish Merino sheep”. During the course of his professional career, Prof D. Piwczyński, Ph.D., has held a number of organizational roles at the Department, namely: Deputy Dean for Teaching, Deputy Dean for Science, and the head of the Department of Genetics and Animal Breeding Fundamentals. Prof D. Piwczyński, Ph.D., has since 2015 been a member of the Editorial Board for the Zootechnica series of the Acta Scientiarum Polonorum periodical. In the years 2016–20, he was the head of the Polish editorial team for the Journal of Central European Agriculture; since 2020, he has been a sectional editor at the Livestock Studies periodical published in Türkiye. Starting in early 2021, Prof Dariusz Piwczyński, Ph.D,. took over the role of the head of the Bydgoszcz branch of the Polish Society of Animal Production; at the same time, being a member of the General Board. So far, he has published 320 papers, including 150 original articles. It should be noted that Prof D. Piwczyński, Ph.D., was invited many times to present lectures at international conferences. He teaches classes on applying statistical analysis in the evaluation of biological data. In 2012, he conducted a week-long statistics course for the International School for Doctoral Students in Italy. Piwczyński, Ph.D., lectured foreign university students as part of the ERASMUS programme in countries such as Slovakia, Türkiye, Greece, Bulgaria, or Hungary. His current area of academic interest focuses on biostatistics, population genetics, sheep and dairy cattle breeding – determinants of production and functional traits, genetic parameters, breeding value, and assessment of the influence of the automatic milking system on the production and functional traits of dairy cows.

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Prof. Dr. Sergio LEDDA

​Prof. Dr. Sergio Ledda is a Full Professor in Veterinary Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Sassari, Italy. He earned his degree in Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from Sassari in 1985, then held positions as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in Veterinary Physiology at Sassari before being appointed full professor in 2002. His research focuses strongly on reproductive physiology and biotechnologies in domestic, wild, and companion animals, with particular expertise in in vitro embryo production and manipulation, cryopreservation of germplasm and reproductive cells, and genetic identification of endangered species. Over his career, he has published around 90 papers in topics aligned with his lines of research, achieving an H-index of 22 (Scopus) and 30 with a larger citation count via Google Scholar. He is also involved in applying these reproductive biotechnologies in field use, contributing both to the theoretical understanding and the practical implementation of methods for fertility preservation, species conservation, and enhancement of reproductive efficiency in farm and wild populations.

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​​Prof. Dr. Edit MIKO

Edit Mikó, Associate Professor, the agricultural engineer. She continued her secondary education at the Agricultural Secondary School. She graduated from the Faculty of Animal Sciences of the University of Kaposvár in Hungary in 2002. He gained practical experience as a cattle farmer between 1993 and 2000. She has worked at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Szeged, since 2004. He defended his doctoral thesis in 2012 and was habilitated in 2017. She teaches cattle breeding in Hungarian and English as part of her animal husbandry courses. Her research interests are in cattle breeding, including the main parameters of dairy cattle as a function of environmental changes. She is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Szeged.