cbaes

Christine Baes

Position/Title: Professor and Associate Dean of External Relations; Canada Research Chair in Livestock Genomics
email: cbaes@uoguelph.ca
Phone: (519) 824-4120 ext. 53363
Office: Johnston Hall 166

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Meet Christine ( 60 second OAC video )

Dr. Christine Baes was born and raised on a dairy farm in Southwestern Ontario and learned to appreciate Canadian agriculture at a young age. After completing her Bachelors degree at Guelph, she went on to finish a Master of Science degree in Animal Welfare at the Universität Hohenheim and a PhD in Quantitative Genetics at the the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology and the Christian Albrechts Universität zu Kiel in Germany.

She became involved in various large-scale livestock breeding projects (swine, horses, dairy cattle, goats), and, together with her team, strives to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and practical application of new knowledge. Dr. Baes has extensive knowledge in the areas of quantitative genetics and statistical genomics as it relates to the genetic and genomic evaluation of livestock. She works with large data (SNP chip data as well as NGS data), and her programming experience includes FORTRAN, R, UNIX, and other languages. Dr. Baes has taught multiple courses on genetics, genomics, and statistics in Germany, Switzerland, and Canada.

In her spare time, she runs a small farm outside of Maryhill.

Academic History

Bachelor of Science, Honours in Animal Science, University of Guelph (2004)
Master of Science in Agriculture, Universität Hohenheim (2005)
Doctor of Science in Quantitiative Genetics (magna cum laude), Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology / Christian Albrechts Univesität zu Kiel (2008)

Affiliations and Partnerships

Registered Farmer with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture
Past President of the Canadian Society of Animal Science
Genetic Evaluation Board Member
Holstein Canada Breed Advisory Committee Member
SOSCIP Scientific Advisory Committee Member
Dairy at Guelph Steering Committee Member
CDX Steering Committee Member
American Dairy Science Association Member
American Society of Animal Science Member
Swiss Association of Animal Science Member
European Federation of Animal Science Member
German Society of Animal Production Member

Awards and Honours

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 Ministers Award of Excellence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
2023 University of Guelph Innovation of the Year Award
2024 J.L. Lush Award in Animal Breeding
2024 National Turkey Federation Research Award
2025 Technical Innovation in Enhancing Production of Safe Affordable Food

Research Impact

Dr. Baes and her team focus on improving health, welfare, and productivity of farm animals through genetic and genomic selection, as well as uncovering the relationship between phenotype and genotype in livestock. She is interested in developing new methods and statistical models for the genetic improvement of livestock, as well as designing breeding strategies for long-term and sustainable genetic improvement.

Completed Research Projects

Dr. Baes and her team have completed a number of large scale projects:

Fine Mapping of Quantitative Trait Loci affecting Somatic Cell Score in German Holsteins
Development of Breeding Strategies against Boar Taint in a Swiss Sire Line
Using Sequence Information to Understand the Genomic Architecture of Dairy Cattle
Application of Genomic Selection in Turkeys for Health, Welfare, Efficiency, and Production (in collaboration with Dr. Ben Wood, User Lead; Dr. Shai Barbut (Department of Food Science, University of Guelph); Dr. Alexandra Harlander-Matauschek (Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, University of Guelph))
The Resilient Dairy Genome Project
Dairy Cluster 3