The Times They Are A-Changin
As I sit down to write this announcement, I’m filled with mixed emotions. It is with a grateful heart that I announce my decision to step down as the Dean of the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Veterinary Medicine next summer.
It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you, the SVM community of employees, students and alumni, and the UW-Madison campus for the past decade. Throughout my tenure, I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented and dedicated individuals in the field of veterinary medicine, and for this, I am eternally grateful.
As Bob Dylan once said, "The times they are a-changin'," and it is time for me to embark on a new chapter in my life. This decision has not been a particularly easy one, but I am confident that it is the right one for me and for the school. By next summer, I’ll have been the school’s Dean for a dozen years of both fulfilling and challenging times. We’ve weathered a pandemic and have begun to dramatically improve our infrastructure. We continue to move forward with a new curriculum designed to even better prepare our new graduates with improved day 1 competencies. And I’m happy to announce that this year was our most successful year for research grant awards at $34 million. Congratulations all!!
I want to take this opportunity to express my deepest appreciation to the faculty, staff, and students who have supported me throughout my tenure. Your commitment to excellence and unwavering dedication to the mission of the school have been an inspiration to me.
As I prepare to transition out of my role as Dean, I am confident that the school will continue to thrive under new leadership. I look forward to remaining a part of the community and supporting the school in any way that I can.
Thank you for the incredible journey that we have shared together. I am grateful for the memories, and I look forward to the next chapter of our lives.
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UW Veterinary Care Updates from the Director |
Please join me in welcoming several new employees who joined our team in June:
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Stephanie Zahlmann joined the ECC as a new veterinary nurse. Stephanie comes to UWVC from Blue Pearl, and brings 4 years of ECC veterinary experience with her to UWVC.
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Maggie Jensen joined the clin path lab as a new med lab tech. Maggie comes to UWVC from the Animal Advocate Pet Hospital in Chicago, IL, where she was a CVT.
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Baylee Close joined the reception team as a new greeter/cashier. Baylee brings a strong background in customer service to UWVC, with previous positions in both retail and veterinary medicine.
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Amy Cottone joined diagnostic imaging as a new radiologic technologist. Amy has previous experience in human health radiology at Fort HeathCare and Stoughton Health.
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Jackson Guthart joined necropsy and histology as a new pathology grossing technician. Jackson has previous experience in zoo med and lab work as a preparator at the UW Zoological Museum.
On behalf of the entire hospital and school, I want to send a tremendous thank you to our outgoing interns and residents. We wish them well on their next adventures.
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Rotating Interns:
- Alex Aubrecht
- Samantha Braman
- Laura Donohue
- Allison DuPont
- Jacqueline Harrison
- Michael JImmerson
- Shefali Kaul
- Sanskruti Potnis
- Natalia Rivera
Outgoing residents :
- Neta Ambar
- Bella Bean
- Angela Borchers
- Hannah Clark
- Elizabeth DiPaola
- Gabriela Escalante
- Kelly Flynn
- Kaitlin Jones
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Specialty interns:
- Kirsten Andersson
- Sophia Chao
- Tricia Hu
- Callie Miller
- Christen Montesanto
- Brenda Righter
- Andrea Kerr
- Ashley Melco
- Jacquelyn Perino
- Alexandra Radtke
- Karan Randhawa
- Allie Stevens
- Adam Townsend
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I would also like to extend a warm welcome to our incoming group of rotating interns. We look forward to watching them grow as veterinarians over the upcoming year. |
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- Hailey Gollnick
- Alexander Rahn
- William Pochal
- Makayla Watros
- Erin Paul
- Anita Fothergill
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- Stephanie Elliot
- Hannah Robertson
- Kristin Keyes
- Rachel Bromberg
- Samantha Fedotva
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Finally, I wanted to share following client comment, which highlights the excellent care and customer service delivered by all members of our team. From the reception staff to the students, nurses, clinicians and everyone behind the scenes, we all play an important role in delivering compassionate care to our patients. Thank you for all that you do.
“Dr. DeForge consulted with so many people to be able to ensure the care was complete and accurate. We would have been running to so many different specialists had we not come here. I feel we got a complete set of facts and accurate lab work to arrive at the best treatment solution for my dog. My only regret is not coming sooner.”
Christopher Snyder, DVM, DAVDC
Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
An update from Richard Barajas, assistant dean for diversity, equity and inclusion
The SVM will be hosting two youth education and advocacy groups on campus this summer with the goal of getting students excited about careers in the veterinary profession.
The first group, PEOPLE, recruits students in the 8th grade and then helps them reach their goals of college attainment and degree completion. PEOPLE consists of two programs: one specific to precollege students and one specific to college scholars at UW-Madison. The second group, MADYM, provides girl and youth of color in grades 6-12 with the skills, experiences, and connections to pursue careers in and change the face of STEM.
It's not too late to join our Summer book club. It’s open to all SVM employees and will meet two times over the lunch hour this summer. Each meeting will last one hour. The book for this summer is Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel. This book is great for people who consider themselves on the right side of history: people fighting the good fight against homophobia, disablism, transphobia and, particularly, racism. People, possibly, like you. It is the comedian and writer David Baddiel's contention that one type of racism has been left out of this fight. In his unique combination of close reasoning, polemic, personal experience and jokes, Baddiel argues that those who think of themselves as on the right side of history have often ignored the history of anti-Semitism. He outlines why and how, in a time of intensely heightened awareness of minorities, Jews don't count as a real minority: and why they should.
Finally, save the date for the next Iverson Bell Midwest Regional Diversity Summit, which will be hosted by the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine from May 21-23, 2024.
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Barney Easterday (founding dean of SVM) catches up with SVM alumnus Tami Zalewski DVM'93 at the
Alumni Picnic June 24th. More than 150 of the school's alumni attended the annual event. View a collection of photos from the event.
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School News
Last November, long-time SVM friends and supporters, Tim and Nancy Speaker, provided a $500,000 commitment for the building expansion campaign to launch the Speaker Match, a dollar-for-dollar matching gift program aimed to inspire other donors to contribute to the project. At the time of the Speaker’s commitment, the school was approximately $5 million shy of what was needed to fully equip the project and complete the fundraising portion of the campaign. Thanks to the help of 17 donor families, the Speaker Match was successfully completed last month. With the campaign nearing its end (it needs approximately $2 million more in gifts to complete) the SVM would like to thank Tim, Nancy and the 17 donor families for their generous support.
Faculty and Staff News
Dean Mark Markel was elected as President-elect of the AO Foundation, the world’s largest orthopedic foundation in the world. He will be the first veterinarian to lead the organization in its 65-year history, serving as president-elect from 2023-2025 and as president from 2025-2027.
M. Suresh has been reappointed to the John E. Butler Professorship in Comparative and Mucosal Immunology for a second five-year term. During his first appointment, M. Suresh successfully leveraged the professorship support to stay at the cutting edge of his research by taking a deep dive into mechanistic molecular immunology to explore new avenues of investigations in mucosal T cell immunity to respiratory pathogens. This appointment begins on July 1, 2023 and extends through June 30, 2028.
Gillian McLellan (Surgical Sciences), Nigel Cook (Medical Sciences), Jyoti Watters (Comparative Biosciences) and Kristen Bernard (Pathobiological Sciences) were selected by their respective departmental members to continue their role as department chairs.
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Diagnostic Imaging resident Kate Jones presents her research at the International Veterinary Radiology Association conference in Dublin, Ireland. |
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Research News
Freya Mowat (Surgical Sciences) has been awarded an ICTR Translational and Clinical Research pilot project award as co-PI with Amy Schultz of UW-Madison's Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW). The goals of their project are to determine whether lead concentration in soil/dust in households with pets are different to those without pets, and how pets and lead might modify the soil, dust and gut microbiome of humans.
Alex Aubrecht (small animal rotating intern) and Robb Hardie (Surgical Sciences) presented two abstracts at the annual scientific meeting of the Society of Veterinary Soft Tissue Surgery in Jacksonville, Florida. Both studies aim to improve the way dogs with palatal defects and right-sided intrahepatic shunts are treated and potentially increase the success rates for treatment of these dogs.
SVM was well represented at the European College of Veterinary Ophthalmogists (ECVO) Annual Meeting in Rhodes, Greece. Lauren Trepanier and Gillian McClellan were main speakers in the Continuing Education and MasterClass programs, the main focus of which was “Clinical Investigation in Veterinary Ophthalmology: Aspects of Study Design.” Freya Mowat also presented her research on screen interaction behavior in companion dogs.
Seth Eaton presented his research on optimizing the local anesthetic volume administered to horses undergoing eye surgery at the International Equine Ophthalmology Consortium Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Johanna Elfenbein (Pathobiological Sciences) received funding for a R21 grant to study how bacteria sense and respond to sulfites encountered during infection and/or in food products.
Chad Vezina (Comparative Biosciences) with MPI Heidi Brown (SMPH) received a renewal of their training grant “Wisconsin Multidisciplinary K12 Urologic Research Career Development Program Grant” from the NIH/NIDDK. This training grant supports the transition to research independence of clinicians and basic science researchers studying benign urology.
Ted Golos (Comparative Biosciences) with MPI Aleks Stanic (SMPH) received a new R21 grant entitled “Gestationally driven trafficking of decidual lymphocytes assessed by serial intravascular staining.”
Fei Zhao (Comparative Biosciences) published a high profile review article “Epithelial and mesenchymal fate decisions in Wolffian duct development” in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism. The paper provides a new perspective of reproductive organ development.
Kate Jones, diagnostic imaging resident, (Surgical Sciences) presented her research project "18F-FDG PET/MRI in Canine Brain Tumor Patients" at the International Veterinary Radiology Association conference in Dublin, Ireland
Jessica Hite (Pathobiological Sciences) received a NSF-NIH Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease grant to develop spatio-temporal transmission models that account for the non-linear and interactive effects of ecology, behavior, and immunology on helminth transmission. This project also includes an exciting art-science collaboration involving First Nations artists and science journalism students. She will collaborate on this $5 million grant with Dr. Amanda Hund at Carelton College, Dr. Dan Bolnick at the University of Connecticut, and Dr. Sebastian Schreiber at UC-Davis. Hite also received a USDA-NIFA SEED grant to develop bioenergetic approaches to limit cross-species transmission of Salmonella. This is a collaborative grant with Dr. Steve Ricke in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences.
Student News
Lauren Cromwell (Class of 2025) received a fellowship from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research to study the impacts of climate change, population growth, and infectious disease on livestock production.
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Alaina Houghton-Chamberlain BS '22 presents her research on the mechanisms of ovary development and disruptions in fetal development that can lead to adult infertility. Houghton-Chamberlain was one of four students in the inaugural cohort of the UW-Madison Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) led by SVM's Joan Jorgenson. The NIH-funded PREP program helps aspiring scientists realize their dreams of pursuing doctoral degrees in the biomedical sciences. |
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July 14
AVMA Wisconsin Alumni Reception
7-9pm
Earls Kitchen + Bar in Denver
July 21
Dean’s Get Together Ice Cream Social
11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Hanson Lab
August 8
Vet Med Ed Day
8:30-3:00
DeJope Residence Hall/Mendota Room
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August 18
Dean’s Get Together
4:30 – 6 p.m.
SVM Overhang
September 15
All School Kickoff Picnic
5– 7 p.m.
SVM Overhang
November 11
Tailgate 2023
UW vs. Northwestern
Details TBD
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Dr. David Vail was a guest on Wisconsin Public Radio’s The Morning Show to discuss the latest advancements in veterinary medicine and shared his expertise and tips for dealing with sick pets.
Lyric Bartholomay, PhD was a guest on Channel 3's Live at Four to discuss the harm that ticks pose to humans and animals – and what people should be looking out for.
Dr. Erin Lashnits was interviewed by Channel 27 and Channel 3 for stories about keeping pets safe during days with unhealthy air quality.
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