Cristina Wilkins | PhD Student, School of Environmental and Rural Science
University of New England

Cristina Wilkins is a PhD candidate with the University of New England, investigating the factors influencing the One Welfare outcomes of human-horse interactions. She is project leader of the Mellorater, a welfare monitoring app for animal guardians. For over a decade, Cristina honed her science communication skills as publisher and editor of Horses and People, and more recently, created an short course for UNE’s Open Learning platform titled Applying the Five Domains Model to the Welfare Assessment of Sport and Recreation Horses. She has previous experience as an equestrian coach, official, and international competitor in eventing. She worked in the equine sector in Spain, the UK and New Zealand, before settling in Queensland, in 1998. Cristina was a member of the Council of the International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) from 2011 to 2019. She is a co-author of ‘The 2020 Five Domains Model: Including Human-Animal Interactions in Assessments of Animal Welfare’, as well as another eight scientific articles.