People: Aviagen appoints new hatchery specialist

Aviagen has announced the appointment of Nirada (Ni) Leksrisompong as one of the team of Incubationists working in the hatchery support group. Leksrisompong started her new role in January and is based at the Aviagen headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.

Like all of Aviagen’s Incubationists, in her new position Leksrisompong will combine customer support with supervising incubation trials at the Aviagen trials facilities in Albertville, USA, and Spelderholt in the Netherlands. She will also work with the team to produce hatchery technical literature and help with training programmes for colleagues and customers.

Dinah Nicholson, global manager, Hatchery Development and Support, said: ”Ni has the training, attitude and relevant experience to be an extremely effective Incubationist and I am delighted that she has joined the team. To start with she will be making joint visits with other team members in different parts of the world to build her experience of the many makes and types of incubators and of effective ways of delivering specialist technical support. She will also be working on special projects in our own and customer hatcheries.”

Leksrisompong began her career with Aviagen as a management trainee in February 2011 after completing a Masters and a PhD in Poultry Science at the North Carolina State University. Her PhD thesis covered the effect of feeder space and feeding programmes during rearing and laying on broiler breeder reproductive performance and liveability. She also completed a Masters dissertation on the impact of temperature during both incubation and brooding on the performance of broiler chickens.

In the first year with Aviagen, Leksrisompong spent time in Grandparent (GP) and Great Grandparent (GGP) production facilities in in the US and Brazil. She then worked with the hatchery support team on incubation trials at Albertville. For the last two years she has been based at the Aviagen operation in India, supporting the trialling and introduction of new products. Part of this project involved working with the hatchery manager to improve hatchability.