My research falls in the realm of companion animal epidemiology: the study of causes of health and disease in populations of dogs and cats. The studies that I do are non-experimental (or observational), and generally (but not always) do not involve in handling animals. Examples of STAR projects that I have been involved with in the past include studying factors affecting survival in dogs and cats that underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation, factors affecting survival in dogs with peripheral nerve sheath tumors, and predisposing factors to secondary glaucoma in dogs. These kinds of studies often begin with ideas formulated by students, and we figure out a way to study them in the time allotted for the STAR program.
More generally, I'm interested in environmental and sociological factors that affect the health and well-being of companion animals. Some of my more recent work centers on determinants of relinquishment of dogs and cats to animal shelters, factors affecting adoption of animals from shelters, better characterizing risk factors for vaccine-associated sarcomas in cats, evaluating the relationship between vaccines and immune-mediated hemolytic anemia in dogs, and studying the effects of environmental tobacco smoke on the respiratory tracts of dogs and cats. This past summer, I was a mentor or co-mentor on two projects: one looking at prognostic factors for recovery of function following intervertebral disk protrusion in Dachshunds, and one on
environmental exposure to herbicides and the risk of multiple myeloma in
dogs. If this kind of work is of interest, please feel welcome to contact me at phkass@ucdavis.edu