Dr John G Fennell

I am a Lecturer in Animal Sensing and Biometrics at Bristol Veterinary School. Before being appointed as a lecturer I was an EPSRC Innovation Fellow and principal investigator for a project concerning automatic disease detection and monitoring in calves.

My research interests centre on perception, very broadly defined, which have developed from my undergraduate research project. During my PhD I developed an account of the reward structure in perceptual decision making, based on three dimensions, rather than the single dimension usually considered. More recently my research has been based around deep learning and other mathematical modelling approaches. Currently I am teaching on the Case based learning (CBL) units of the Accelerated Graduate Entry Programme BVSc degree, together with teaching Communications Skills and Business Management in the Professional studies units of the BVSc.

I was awarded my PhD in 2012, which I studied after graduating with a joint honours degree in Psychology and Philosophy, also at Bristol. My third year project investigated natural aesthetics, subjective judgements and eye movements. Following my PhD I was a post doctoral researcher in the School of Experimental Psychology, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering and School of Biological Sciences, except for a short time working for AIG, a large insurance company, on a project integrating scientific psychological principles into business improvement. This was a valuable experience because it involved working with Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate and father of Behavioural Economics, and Max Bazerman, Harvard professor and leading authority on negotiation. In 2018 I won a prestigious EPSRC Innovation fellowship and moved to the Bristol Veterinary School. Prior to studying at Bristol I spent more than 20 years in the software industry in positions from programmer to Technical Director.