Rosie Herrington is a livestock veterinarian with a special interest in livestock’s role in humanitarian settings. She graduated as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Edinburgh in 2019 before gaining clinical experience in the field as well as consulting with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in a project that trained rural veterinary para-professionals on herd health and business in Eastern, Western and South Africa (more information).
She holds a masters in International Humanitarian Affairs, which focussed on humanitarian ethics, law, research and how these apply to the livestock sector in disaster and conflict-affected settings. Following her research in Ethiopia with Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, she formed her research question which has led her to her role at the Jameel Observatory today.
Research focus and plans
In 2025, Rosie was awarded a UKRI / MRC funded pre-doctoral clinical research training fellowship at the Jameel Observatory for her project “Refugee camps and livestock: child malnutrition and health implications in Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya.”
In a world where the number of forcibly displaced people is at an all-time high, reaching over 110 million people in 2023, there is a critical need to identify means to keep those people safe and healthy as well as empower them to maintain or return to their livelihoods. The majority of refugees in Kenya come from a rural background yet livestock in refugee camps have been little researched, likely owing to a sense of urgency during crises which sees immediate life-saving initiatives prioritised. However, living in displacement has become a chronic situation for many and so investigation of such is overdue.
During her research Rosie will be investigating the variety of health impacts livestock ownership may have in a refugee camp setting. She will be undertaking a participatory modelling study incorporating system dynamics modelling and fuzzy cognitive mapping supported by her primary supervisor Lian Thomas. She will also be undertaking an empirical, observational, cross-sectional study of nutritional outcomes in children under 5 comparing households who engage in livestock ownership and those who do not, supported by supervisor Judith Okoth. The results of this will provide the first evidence on this topic in this setting which will inform policy-making and humanitarian decision-making and will be supported by supervisor RCVS Professor Lisa Boden.
Jameel Observatory significance
By shining a light on this chronically under-researched area, Rosie hopes to highlight potential avenues out of malnutrition in displacement. Identifying these avenues will inform early action research and future projects as climate change is set to vastly increase the number of climate-refugees in the East African drylands. Livestock are key to pastoralist communities’ resilience and self-reliance and so understanding their impact on refugee health will crucially improve targeting of limited funding.
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