2021
Senior Fellowship in the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
2014
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
University of Edinburgh
2010
Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris (VMD)
Summa Cum Laude
University of Pennsylvania
2006
Bachelor of Science (BSc)
With Highest Honours
Rutgers University
I am an award-winning veterinary researcher, educator, and clinician on a mission to change how we share animal health information to make animal and human lives better.
My career originally started out in clinical practice as an on-the-job trained veterinary nurse before later becoming a shelter veterinarian. I transitioned into academia because I loved learning how to be a better veterinarian from my patients, clients, and colleagues and then sharing that knowledge back to help others who were struggling with the same issues. Since moving to New Zealand in 2015, I have been involved in many exciting research and teaching initiatives covering important challenges facing animal owners, veterinary professionals, and industry stakeholders across the country. I joined forces with Seton and Kat in 2023 to create AkoVet as a platform where we could make those findings and resources more widely accessible to achieve positive impacts in the real world.
I started out my life in Canada, but spent most of my time growing up in various places across the northeastern United States and United Kingdom. I chose a career in veterinary medicine because I was always fascinated by all the weird and wonderful ways our bodies work to keep us alive and preferred the challenge of working with many different species.
I completed my Bachelors of Science (BSc) in Animal Science summa cum laude with an Honor’s thesis using historical data to look at the relationship between air pollution and thoroughbred race performance. During this time, I also worked my way through the roles of kennel attendant, receptionist, veterinary assistant, and on-the-job trained veterinary technician in companion animal practice.
I fell in love with food animals in my first year of veterinary school and tracked production animal medicine with a special focus on dairy. Through two summer research programmes and independent study projects, I published 8 first-author manuscripts on West Nile virus risk factors, companion animal parasitology, and veterinary public health. I spent most weekends volunteering at the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) doing high-volume spay-neuter for cats.
After finishing my veterinary degree, I spent 6 months working full-time as a shelter medicine veterinarian in Philadelphia taking care of shelter animals, seeing outpatient appointments in low-cost community clinics, and more high-volume spay-neuter.
Six years in school was still not enough so I chose to pursue a PhD in Veterinary Epidemiology in the Epigroup at University of Edinburgh. My research focused on modelling the spread of infectious diseases through cattle movement networks and how we can modifying trading behaviours to make it harder for pathogens to persist. I continued to work as a locum small animal veterinarian and teaching assistant for extra income.
I was feeling a bit lost after finishing my PhD when an opportunity came up at Texas A&M University to work on a syndromic surveillance project looking to build a mobile app for veterinarians to enter data on clinical cases they encountered in large animal and swine production practice. I also continued doing clinical work in shelter medicine during this time period.
Through my connections from Texas A&M University, I found out about a faculty position in Veterinary Epidemiology being offered at Massey University for someone with similar focus to my PhD. Having never been to New Zealand before, I packed my life into a shipping container and showed up here on Waitangi Day in 2015. Since then, I have worked my way up from Lecturer to Professor by saying “Yes” to far too many research, teaching, and service projects with at least some of them turning out to be successful.
As of 2023, I dropped to part-time at Massey University so that I can dedicate more time to developing resources and tools for AkoVet.
What matters most to me is helping people solve the animal health challenges that matter most to them. My research blends data science with social science to learn how we can utilize existing animal health data streams to help stakeholders make more informed disease management decisions and to understand how we can better communicate the results from these research studies to promote positive behavioural change in practice.
Over the past 10 years, I have managed a $2.1 million research portfolio tackling important issues for animal populations and veterinary professionals in New Zealand. This has included:
This large multidisciplinary research project used field research studies, cross-sectional surveys, retrospective data analysis, and simulation modelling to evaluate the economics of establishing a coordinated national disease control programme for bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) virus in New Zealand. Check out the BVD Free website for more information.
This project worked with the commercial poultry industry and backyard poultry producers to explore opportunities for building a national poultry health system to support national disease prevention and control activities.
This project involved conducting cross-sectional surveys, clinic interviews, and literature reviews to understand more about how veterinary clinics use allied veterinary professionals (including nurses, technicians, assistants, and receptionists) to support clinical work and how we can support New Zealand veterinary practices in utilising AVPs more effectively.
This project involved conducting cross-sectional surveys and literature reviews to understand how New Zealand veterinarians approach continuing professional development (CPD) and what additional resources would better support new graduates as well as experienced veterinarians. The findings were used by Veterinary Council of New Zealand to restructure CPD regulations for veterinarians.
I have managed a diverse portfolio of research projects exploring how infectious diseases spread within and between livestock populations and the implications for disease control programmes. This has included Staphylococcus aureus mastitis, bovine digital dermatitis, Mycoplasma bovis, foot-and-mouth disease, bovine tuberculosis, and many others.
I have collaborated with many researchers and organisations to study different issues around companion animal ownership, clinical practice, and companion animal rescue in New Zealand.
I have been involved with university-level and international-level research exploring the impacts of different teaching approaches on student learning outcomes, understanding the current role of Competency-Based Veterinary Education in final year rotations, and methods of supporting educators in providing students with appropriate feedback and assessment.
For a complete list of my research publications, check out my Google Scholar profile.
My approach to teaching has evolved from a lot of self-reflection on the many challenges I faced during my first few years in clinical practice and all the things I wish someone had taught me before graduation so that I felt more confident handling common clinical scenarios.
I am a strong proponent of Competency Based Veterinary Education (CBVE), which is an educational framework that focuses on what learners can actually do rather than on simply what they know. This means that every learning activity I design is specifically aimed at placing students in either real or simulated workplace settings where they learn key concepts in the context where they will be using them. Furthermore, I empower students to take charge of their own education by providing them with resources that facilitate self-directed learning as well as opportunities to reinforce their learning through teaching their peers.
Over the past decade, I have developed and delivered award-winning teaching programmes in the following subject areas:
Undergraduate and postrgraduate level courses in epidemiology, animal health economics, research study design, data analysis, and infectious disease modelling.
Undergraduate and postrgraduate level courses in dairy production medicine including nutrition, reproduction, mastitis, lameness, biosecurity, infectious diseases, culling, and youngstock management.
Building a “virtual veterinary teaching hospital” with a portfolio of more than 75 common clinical cases to provide pre-clinical and clinical year veterinary students with greater case exposure.
Developing a blended final year rotation including shelter site visits, desexing surgeries, and an online module with 30 common clinical cases in shelter medicine.
I have been involved with supervising final-year veterinary students on their community practice rotation including outpatient appointments and procedures.
On weekends, I run the Massey-SPCA Desexing Clinic which is an volunteer programme that provides low-cost cat desexing surgeries to underserved communities while also providing veterinary students much needed hands-on clinical experience earlier in the degree.
Since the programme started in 2017, we have run more than 320 clinic days and desexed more than 4,500 cats. In 2018, the programme was awarded the Aotearoa New Zealand John Schofield Three Rs Implementation Award for what we have accomplished making teaching activities a positive experience for animals, owners, and students. The clinic has been featured in two media stories to celebrate our 500th surgery and 2000th surgery milestones.
In recognition of the significant contributions I have made to veterinary education in New Zealand, I was awarded the 2022 Prime Minister’s Educator of the Year Award.
My research and teaching work has been recognised for excellence through several university, national, and international awards.
2022
Prime Minister’s Educator of the Year Award
Te Whatu Kairangi Aotearoa Tertiary Educator Award
2021
Massey University Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award
Senior Fellowship in the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
2020
Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) – Emerging Scholars Award
2018
International Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics (ISVEE) Emerging Scientist Award
Aotearoa New Zealand John Schofield Three Rs Implementation Award
Massey University Early Career Research Award Medal
Massey University Early Career Teaching Award Medal
College of Science Early Career Research Award
Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) – “A” grade
“Calling in an epidemiologist after the research study has finished is like calling in a pathologist. They can tell you why your research study died but there is nothing they can do to fix it.”
Having published more than 90 peer-reviewed journal articles spanning more than 50 research studies, I have a wide range of expertise across many species and disciplines in animal health and veterinary education. I enjoy sharing what I have learned about the research process with other researchers and organisations to help them avoid the mistakes I’ve made so they can make the most of their project ideas.
How I can help you:
I work primarily in R for statistical analysis and C for simulation modelling, but am also familiar with STATA, SPSS, and Python.
If you have a research or teaching project in mind, please get in touch to arrange time to chat with me about your project requirements.
*Please note that any work I do through AkoVet is completely independent from my current role at Massey University.