Prof. Dr. Türker SAVAŞ, born on 28 November 1965 in Çanakkale, Türkiye, received his Ph.D. degree from Kiel University in 1998 with a doctoral dissertation on the genetic improvement of egg production in chickens. In 1999, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Animal Science, Division of Animal Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture at Trakya University. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2000 and, in the same year, joined the Department of Animal Science, Division of Animal Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.

Promoted to Full Professor in 2006, Prof. Dr. Türker SAVAŞ specializes in Animal Breeding and Genetics. He is also widely recognized for his research on animal behavior, animal welfare, and small ruminant production systems. In recent years, his interests have expanded to include production systems and animal health. He has authored more than 80 scientific articles and has presented over 150 papers at national and international scientific meetings.

Between December 2013 and December 2019, Prof. Dr. Türker SAVAŞ served as President of the Çanakkale Branch of the Chamber of Agricultural Engineers, Secretary of the TMMOB Çanakkale Provincial Coordination Board, and Spokesperson for the Çanakkale Environmental Platform. In these capacities, he worked to promote environmentally friendly alternative energy production systems and contributed to the development of related policies at various local committees and meetings in Çanakkale, particularly in support of the environmental positions adopted by the civil society organizations he represented regarding thermal power plants.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Onur Yılmaz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Science, Division of Biometry and Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Adnan Menderes University, Aydın. He has published numerous national and international scientific articles and participated in various research projects. One of these projects was supported under the EU Horizon 2020 Era-NET program, while others have mostly been completed or are ongoing at the national level. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yılmaz has received two full-time scholarships from the European Science Foundation (ESF). Under the ESF, he received training in 2009 at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milano, Italy, on “A Global View of Livestock Biodiversity and Conservation,” and in 2011 at the Universität für Bodenkultur in Vienna, Austria, on “Animal Breeding Meets Social Sciences”. Additionally, in 2005, with MASHAV scholarships, he studied “Ruminants: Meat Production and Management” at the Hebrew University of Israel; in 2007, with ERASMUS scholarships, he studied “Determination of Genetic Structure Using Molecular Genetic Methods in Sheep Breeds”; and in 2017, he received a full-time scholarship from CHIEAM in Spain to study “Advances in Small Ruminant Reproduction” at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza. As a result of numerous scientific activities conducted jointly with Prof. Dr. Orhan Karaca and Prof. Dr. İbrahim Cemal, he made significant contributions to the registration of the Çine Çaparı sheep breed, which is threatened with extinction, as well as the Eşme and Karya sheep breeds, which are widely raised in Western Anatolia, as National Breeds. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yılmaz was elected to the National Animal Breeding Committee, Small Ruminant Breeding Subcommittee, in 2022. Having taught numerous undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral courses, he continues his academic research on animal breeding programs, genetic characterization using molecular markers, paternity testing using microsatellite and SNP markers, selection signatures, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and genomic selection.