Maria Devant

Maria Devant has a solid background in R&D in Swine and Ruminant Production. Over the last 20 years, she has focused her scientific career in beef production improving feed efficiency and enhancing economic returns while minimizing environmental impact, improving animal welfare, and offering high-quality products to the consumers through research and innovation. To achieve this goal the creation and leadership of the Beef Innovation Table, and recently the Feed production and animal nutrition Innovation Table has been crucial, in this annual meeting 12 representatives of the whole production chain propose and set priorities of the research topics, and in this forum, we also connect them the new societal demands that are coming and that they need to be prepared (like antibiotic use reduction).

Her expertise is nutrition and management, and in case a topic needs to be complemented with another expertise she looks for collaboration within IRTA or outside IRTA to face it. In the last 5 years she has focused her research in 2 topics: improving beef sustainability and animal recovery from stressful periods with nutritional and management strategies. As a result of this work, she has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in major international journals (Quartile 1, 80%). Besides, she have presented over 150 communications and posters in scientific congresses.

Along with this research activity she is head of the Ruminant Production Program (since 2016) and Animal Nutrition Program (since 2021) and member of Scientific Coordination Team at IRTA (since 2018), in these 3 positions where team working needs to be successful, she develops two skills i) openness to different perspectives and being able to conceptualize the big picture, ii) and being able to bridge people around a common mission.