Doris Pellerin

Doris Pellerin has made outstanding contributions to livestock research, teaching, and practice. Throughout his career, he contributed to the development of the Animal Science Department and significantly improved the training offered. He was deeply committed to his department, the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, and Université Laval.

An outstanding educator

Dr. Pellerin passed on his commitment to meeting the challenges of dairy farmers through his research. He trained a whole generation of agronomists by teaching them dairy production, an important course for their professional training in agronomy. During his career, he supervised or co-supervised the work of over 60 graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows. Their research findings have been widely disseminated at national and international conferences, before being published in high-quality peer-reviewed journals. Many of the students who pursued doctoral or postdoctoral studies with Dr. Pellerin now hold important positions in research or teaching, which reflects the quality of the training they received.

Dr. Pellerin always sought to empower students. He has used real-world teaching, case studies, and a problem-based approach to help them develop their problem-solving skills.

He is one of the pioneers in distance (off campus) and online education in the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences. The quality of his educational innovations was recognized by Université Laval, which honoured him with the Distance Learning Course Award for excellence in teaching in 2009.

Making a difference in the industry

Doris Pellerin is well known in Québec’s dairy industry for his leadership and involvement in technology transfer, research, and knowledge transfer. Throughout his career, he was committed to community service. He accepted numerous assignments at Université Laval, including as a unit director, and externally, serving on a number of expert panels and boards of directors.

His national and international collaborations, which always focused on providing Québec and Canadian dairy farms with sustainable production systems, led to the development of numerous tools used in research and teaching, as well as by producers and their advisors. These include assessing cow comfort and well-being, optimizing farm profitability and mineral cycles, evaluating the sustainability of dairy farms, and assessing the economic impact of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies. Dr. Pellerin is one of the pioneers in micro-computing on the farm.

He dedicated himself to explaining the scientific results of his work in plain language and publishing them on many platforms, which included regularly taking part in the Dairy Cattle Symposium and writing numerous articles in journals for dairy producers.

Doris Pellerin was repeatedly recognized for his contributions. He received the Canadian Animal Industries Award in Extension and Public Service from the Canadian Society of Animal Science in recognition of his outstanding service to Canada’s animal industries in technology transfer, leadership, and education in livestock production.

His accessibility and the rigour of his research and teaching made him an authority in his field.