Farina Luca

	Role and Department	Veterinarian – SCT1 – Verona and Vicenza
		Director – National Reference Centre for animal assisted interventions (pet therapy)
	Phone	+39 049 8084281
	E-mail	lfarina@izsvenezie.it

Professional profile

Luca Farina is, since 2013, Director of the Italian National Reference Centre for Animal Assisted Interventions, established by the Ministry of Health in 2009. He graduated in Veterinary Medicine (Milan, 1983) and studied at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (Belgium), where he was awarded a diploma in Tropical Veterinary Medicine (1986) and a M.Sc. in Tropical Animal Production (1987). In 1996, he specialized in Animal Health, Breeding and Livestock Production at the University of Bologna.

Most of his professional career has been spent outside Italy. Three years of international aid work in Burundi were followed by three years at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Togo and at the Headquarters in Rome. After returning to Italy in 1990, he began his professional experience with the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZSVe, a public health institute part of the Italian National Health Scheme), becoming involved in environmental hygiene, veterinary epidemiology, serology, training and cooperation.

In 1999, he was selected by the European Commission as Principal Administrator at DG SANCO’s Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin, where he remained until 2007. From 2007 to 2013, he was recruited at the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Surveillance Authority as a senior officer, based in Brussels. In June 2013 he finally returned to the IZSVe and was appointed as Director of the Italian National Reference Centre for Animal Assisted Interventions.

His areas of interest are associated with animal assisted therapy and veterinary aspects of bioethics, animal welfare and animal behavior. He liaises with human physicians and international organizations; he is involved in the training of multidisciplinary team members and in designing animal assisted interventions.

He participates to national and international conferences on AAI.

Publications