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Frances Margaret Cecilia Robinson, MRCVS

11th September 2013

graduated from the University of Glasgow Veterinary College in 1971 with a degree in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. From 1971 to 1980 she worked in private veterinary practice in Glasgow, Epsom, and the Isle of Arran, and, from 1981 to 1986, she worked for the PDSA in Nottingham. In 1986 she moved to Cheshire, where she did occasional locum work in small animal practice. In 1989, she retired from practice. A heightened awareness of environmental problems – in particular, the loss of biodiversity and global animal welfare problems, the discovery of Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, and the exposé of some of the experiments which were being done on animals in the name of science predisposed to her returning to university in 1996. In 2000, she graduated with a BA in Philosophy and Environmental Management from the University of Keele. In 2001, she was awarded an MA in Values and the Environment from the University of Lancaster, with a dissertation entitled ‘The Relevance of Chaos to Environmental Ethics’. She returned to the University of Lancaster to research the relevance of the study of complex adaptive systems to environmental ethics – with particular focus on the epistemological basis for the use of animals in scientific experimentation. The study was multidisciplinary in nature, and she graduated with an MPhil in Philosophy in 2011. Her thesis was entitled ‘Animal Experimentation, Complexity and Animal Ethics’. She has presented at various institutions, including the University of Lancaster and at the Minding Animals Conference in Utrecht.