She is a final-year law and politics student who was recently awarded a $US5000 ($NZ6300) scholarship by the US-based Animal Legal Defence Fund (ALDF).
The ALDF has long been striving to protect the lives and interests of animals through the legal system.
Miss Duffield (23) was also recently awarded an Otago Justice of the Peace Association Prize, involving $500, for her work to raise awareness of animal law issues, including her founding of "Animal Law Week" at the university in July 2010.
She also founded an Otago University-based chapter of the ALDF that year.
This week she is also co-ordinating the latest annual "Animal Law Week", and acknowledges the strong backing she has received from the Otago Law Faculty.
"It's really important to get these issues out there".
New Zealand's Animal Welfare Act, of 1999, had been "quite progressive"at the time but "a lot of problems" with the law now needed to be resolved, she said in an interview.
The legislation recognises "five freedoms", including to receive proper and sufficient food and water, and the opportunity to display "normal patterns of behaviour".
She noted that New Zealand's animal welfare strategy and the legislation were soon to be reviewed, and public consultation would take place later this year.
A key problem with the law was that the minimum standards for animals specified in the accompanying "codes of welfare" were not fully consistent with the law's "five freedoms".
More advanced animal welfare requirements had been put in place in the European Union, and New Zealand had to be careful it did not fall behind the level of animal protection now required there and elsewhere.
New Zealanders also had rising expectations for animal welfare, she said.
