Anita Bielak

Tell us about yourself (Who are you? Where are you from? What is your educational background?)

I am born in Wiesbaden, Germany and grew up in the northern Part of Germany. I went to the University of Leipzig to study veterinary medicine and graduated 2010. After that I worked as a companion animal practitioner in a clinic in Manitoba, Canada for one year, after which I returned to Germany to start a position as a mixed animal practitioner in Schleswig-Holstein. In October 2014 I started a PhD-Position at the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Dummerstorf, Germany.

What is your area of expertise?

Veterinary background to metabolism of cows.

Where does your focus lie within your current project(s)? (related to methane)

Investigation of persistence and variation of methane production in dairy cows and the association to lipid metabolism.

What would be the added value for you of joining an international researchers network? (such as the METHAGENE network)

The different angle of researches provide often good ideas and prevent one from being routine-blinded.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

Doing “hands on science” with animal contact that includes actually wearing rubber boots not for fashion reasons! ;-)