Susanne Eriksson

My research is focused on horses and cattle and I work with projects related to both performance/production traits, fertility and health traits. I am also Head of the Section of Applied Genetics.

I am course leader for, and teach in, the 15 ECTS MSc-course "Designing breeding programmes". I also supervise student projects.

In 2022 a Swedish-Norwegian collaboration project about genetic diversity within and between Nordic native horse breeds started, for which I am project leader.

In November 2022 we also started a project where we investigate if it would be possible to select trotting horses for the ability to race barefoot repeatedly. 

I am also leading a project about genomic selection in Swedish beef breeds, in close collaboration with Växa Sverige and VikingGenetics.

I also do research about genetic diversity and selection in Swedish dairy cattle, both native and commercial breeds.

Besides that I also work in several other projects about horses, for example a project about the genetic background to performance traits in Swedish Warmbloods (SWB) and a project about hypermobility in horses.

Link to my Orcid-page, and to my ResearchGate-profile.

In my research, I cooperate with several breeding organizations such as Viking Genetics, Växa Sverige, Svensk Köttrasprövning AB, The Swedish Trotting association, and SWB (The Swedish Warmblood assocation).

I completed my MSc in Animal Science in SLU in 1998, with a thesis about Inbreeding and conformation traits in Swedish Ardenner horses.

I 2003 I got my PhD in Animal breeding and genetics, SLU, with the PhD-thesis "Genetic aspects of calving, growth and carcass traits in beef cattle".

Since then I'm working as a researcher and Associate Professor in the Dept. of Animal Breeding and Genetics, SLU.

I supervise the licentiate students Paulina Berglund in a project about trotting horse breeding and Sandra Bonow in a project about selection strategies for warmblood riding horses (SWB), and the PhD-student Heidrún Sigurdardóttir who works in a Swedish-Icelandic project about the genetic background of gait quality in Icelandic horses. I am also co-supervisor to the PhD-student Christian Bengtsson working with dairy cattle breeding research.