John F. Hayes obtained his PhD degree in 1977 from North Carolina State University, USA, and Bachelor’s (1972) and Master’s (1974) degrees from University College, Dublin, Ireland. Between 1977 and 1979 he performed postdoctoral research at the Institute of Animal Genetics, Department of Animal Genetics, University of Edinburgh, UK. In 1979 he joined the staff of McGill University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Animal Science where he was later promoted to Associate Professor (1986) and Full Professor (1994). He served as Assistant Director of the Quebec Dairy Herd Analysis Service (now Valacta) from 1979 to 1985 and as Acting Chair of the Department of Animal Science 1981-1982 and 2002-2003. Professor Hayes’s main research interests have been focused mostly on the genetics of quantitative traits of economic importance in dairy cattle, particularly milk yield, milk composition, growth, fertility, health, biological efficiency and lifetime performance and profit, and identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for these traits. Professor Hayes’s teaching interests have been in the areas of animal breeding, quantitative and population genetics at the undergraduate level and genetic selection estimation of genetic parameters at the postgraduate level.

Estimation of quantitative genetic parameters of the fatty acid composition and protein composition of milk in the bovine. Genetic selection for improvement of milk Composition. Estimation of quantitative genetic parameters and genetic improvement of feed intake and feed efficiency in Canadian Holsteins. Estimation of quantitative genetic parameters of type traits and their role in prediction and selection for economically important traits in Canadian Holsteins.