Christine F. Baes



Dr. Christine F. Baes is chair of the Department of Animal Biosciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. She began her five-year term in the role in May 2023. She is also a professor and Canada Research Chair in Livestock Genomics at Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph.

Early life and education
Christine F. Baes was born in Southwestern Ontario. Having grown up around cows on a dairy farm, she completed her Bachelors degree at the University of Guelph, she then finished her Masters of Science degree in Animal Welfare at the University Hohenheim. While continuing her educational journey she completed her PhD in Quantitative Genetics at the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology and the Christian Albrechts University zu Kiel in Germany.

Career
Baes has been involved in livestock breeding projects including swine, dairy cattle, goats, turkey, beef cows, and horses. Her research covers applied animal breeding, quantitative genetics, and sequencing data.

She began teaching at the University of Hohenheim in 2009. She then gained a part-time lecturer position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 2012. Moving back to Canada, Christine accepted the Semex Canadian Dairy Network (CDN) - Holstein Canada Professorship in Dairy Genomics in June 2015 at the University of Guelph.

Awards and recognition

 * 2015 Semex / Canadian Dairy Network / Holstein Canada Professorship in Dairy Genomics
 * 2019 Canada Research Chair in Livestock Genomics awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
 * 2021 Minister's Award of Excellence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship