Patricia Conrad

Veterinary parasitologist Pat Conrad DVM, PhD is focused on living life joyously. Recently retired from her positions as Associate Dean for Global Programs at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and Co-Director of the 10 campus University of California Global Health Institute, Pat has spent the majority of her career dedicated to helping veterinary and graduate students succeed professionally. Evidenced by a global outpouring of support and well wishes at her zoom retirement party in 2021, Pat has touched the lives of many around the world. Raised in rural Colorado, Pat competed, along with her 6 siblings, in Little Britches Rodeo, winning 13 ‘All Around Cowgirl’ saddles. After graduating from Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, she was recruited by the rodeo team at Otero Junior College. To this day, Pat believes that going to a community college was one of her ‘best life decisions”. As a veterinary student at Colorado State University, Pat planned to become a ‘mixed’ (all) animal veterinarian. However, a chance sighting of a poster outside the Dean’s office advertising Marshall Scholarships altered her ‘life plan’, ultimately landing her at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine. There, an impassioned lecture in her course on tropical livestock disease and production changed the direction of her career in ways she never imagined. Her fascination (dare we say ‘love’) for Theileria, a tiny tick-transmitted parasite that transforms lymphocytes and kills cattle, enticed Pat into research. The PhD in Tropical Animal Health and Protozoology she received in <3 years in Edinburgh led to a postdoctoral research position at the International Livestock Research Institute (formerly ILRAD) where she had the opportunity to see her favorite parasite first-hand in cattle with East Coast fever as well as in African Cape buffalo. After four happy years working in Kenya, Pat moved with her husband and 4 month-old son to Davis to join the veterinary school faculty. In her 33.5 years at UC Davis, Pat has built a highly successful, collaborative research program and mentored hundreds of students and early career faculty while raising her two sons as a single mother. A fellow of the American Association of the Advancement Science and American Academy of Microbiology, Pat considers her nomination to the National Academy of Medicine as one of the greatest honors she has received because of its recognition of the value of team-based One Health research. We really appreciated Pat’s wisdom and perspective on the importance of carving-out time to have fun, staying open to new possibilities and recognizing the value of a veterinary degree to making our planet a healthier place for all animals, including people.

Full disclosure - to do this interview, Pat, Jennie and Annabelle (the people behind this project) met over zoom while Annabelle interviewed Pat. It was our last interview in the series, and we are really proud of how it came together.

Veterinary School & Year Graduated: Colorado State University, 1980

Additional Degrees: Associate of Science, Otero Junior College, La Junta, CO 1975
PhD, Tropical Animal Health and Protozoology, University of Edinburgh, 1984

Questions and Answers

Tell me about your most challenging and rewarding veterinary jobs or work experiences.
Helping veterinary and graduate students realize how diverse, fun and collaborative research can be has been one of the greatest rewards of my career. My 4 years as a postdoctoral fellow in Kenya was incredibly educational, enjoyable and productive. That experience taught me, most importantly and for the first time, that research can be both exciting and very rewarding when people with different backgrounds, expertise and perspectives work together to solve challenging problems and make new discoveries. When I came to UC Davis, I was advised by some to build my career by staying ‘focused’ and promoting my own ideas and discoveries. I knew, from my experience in Kenya, that the only way I wanted to do research (and teaching too) was via a collaborative, creative, ‘team’ approach. As challenging as my job was at times, by applying this approach I have truly loved my work at UC Davis for over 3 decades. My greatest joy as a faculty member here has always been the veterinary and graduate students. I don’t like to assign projects to veterinary or graduate students who want to join our research team. I’d rather give students the freedom to develop their own ideas and make connections with different collaborators. This approach empowers students in a way that will inspire and support them throughout their careers with greater confidence. It was really great hearing from past mentees during my transition to retirement as to what they enjoy in their careers. However, I must confess that these students, as well as some of our faculty, have taught me so much that I consider many of them to be my ‘mentors’.
What did you love about the position or experience?
I love being able to work with students and encourage them to talk about their hopes and dreams, and what they would like to explore while in vet school. As a faculty member and the Associate Dean for Global Programs, students often come to me because they have some interest in exploring a new culture or veterinary opportunities in another country. It might just be a feeling or dream they’d like to explore. I can relate to that because of the dramatic changes in my personal and professional paths that I never imagined which started with only a feeling/dream that I couldn’t even articulate when I was a senior veterinary student. So, I love helping students, and faculty colleagues, figure-out how to nurture that feeling and help them explore what possibilities might be out there. Students come-up with amazing ideas. Most every global project, I have supported was inspired by students and I just help make connections and facilitate their ideas. Even if they never work outside of the United States after graduating, I love seeing students change their perspectives and gain cultural awareness. I also love being able to help them travel and have new experiences that will impact their global perspective about life and veterinary medicine.
Tell me about your journey to get to that point in your life.
I grew up in Colorado Springs, but moved to the country in my childhood, in part because of my determination to have a horse. Over a period of relatively short time, we started accumulating animals. We had dogs, cats, horses, goats, ducks, geese, chickens, and even a pig. Living in the country with a menagerie, I was always interested in how to keep our animals healthy and the most impressive professional person I knew was our veterinarian. When we couldn’t afford the veterinarian, my dad would have us kids try to figure-out how to best care for our sick or injured animals. By the time I was eight or nine, I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian. I considered a few other careers over my life, but I knew this was my calling. I was set to go to Colorado State University as an undergraduate, but a few weeks before I was going to start, I visited a community college in southeast Colorado. They were trying to recruit me to be on their rodeo team. My high school counselors told me that if I went to a junior college, I would never get into vet school. However, as soon as I walked on the Otero Junior College campus, I knew that was where I was meant to be. It proved to be the best decision I could have made. My dad lost his job during my first year in college and the rodeo team coaches really helped me navigate applying for financial aid so I could stay in school. I had many ‘work-study’ jobs and in the summers worked as a waitress and dude ranch wrangler to which I attribute most of my interpersonal skills.

After I graduated with my 2-year AS degree, I transferred to Colorado State University (CSU) and was accepted to vet school as one of the youngest people in my class, with just three year of college experience. Funny on reflection I remember that in my admissions interview we talked about CSU’s collaborative efforts in support of the vet school in Nairobi, Kenya. At the time, I was so naïve that I wouldn’t have even been able to find Kenya on a map. I really loved my time in vet school; it was fantastic! Since I wanted to be a mixed animal veterinarian and live in the country, like I had growing up, I spent all of my time in vet school trying to learn everything about every animal species. I was like a ‘sponge’ because each topic and bit of information seemed relevant. Ironically, the only lecture that I didn’t think would ever be relevant to my life was one on East Coast Fever that affects cattle only in East Africa. I had a break in the fall of my fourth year and went on a momentous road trip with my older brother from Colorado to Washington State University to check out their equine surgery internship. My brother, Chris, and I were talking about what I was going to do after I graduated and he told me that although he had left university to go home and support the family when our dad lost his job, he was happy to continue and I should do whatever I wanted to after graduation. Hearing that from him made me question, for the first time, if there was anything else I wanted to do in life besides being a rural veterinarian in Colorado. We were hiking in the Grand Tetons that day and I clearly remember sitting on a rock looking-out over Jenny Lake as I considered that question. I had a surprising, powerful ‘Aha moment’ in which I knew that I needed to go and live in another country. This was truly strange, as I hadn’t traveled much out of Colorado, or ever thought about living abroad before. I started looking for opportunities to study abroad and writing to different international organizations, with no response. One day, I was walking past the Dean’s Office bulletin board and I saw an advertisement for the Marshall scholarship. I reached out to the only professor in the college who had an accent (he must ‘foreign’ I thought) to talk about this opportunity. He helped me apply for the scholarship, and amazingly I got it! After completing my DVM, the scholarship allowed me to go to the University of Edinburgh to do a course in tropical animal production and health. I ended up learning more about East Coast fever (ECF) and this time, I ‘fell in love’ with the amazing parasite, Theileria parva, that ‘transformed lymphocytes’ and caused ECF. I was so passionate about this parasite that I left the course and joined an ECF research lab. The PI in my lab was encouraging me to pursue a PhD and said that having an advanced degree was the only way I would be able to work in Africa. Still, I was very resistant to that idea as I already had DVM. Who needs 2 doctor degrees? Fortunately, that was a battle he won and I got the PhD. I was then offered a post-doctoral position at ILRI, formerly ILRAD, in Kenya. At the time, this international research laboratory was focused on developing vaccines against East Coast fever and trypanosomiasis which were considered the major economic constraints to livestock production in East Africa. The position was supposed to last two years, but I stayed for four, got married and had my first son at Nairobi Hospital. My time in Kenya was a transformational experience that changed my perception on the value and approach to research. The focus there was on important problems that affected people’s daily lives. I loved working with people from different countries and disciplines, bringing new perspectives to tackle different aspects of the problems we tackled. Working with that group was not only highly productive, but also a lot of fun. When I was invited to interview for a faculty position at UC Davis, I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to the States. However, I remember visiting Davis when I was 19 and having this feeling that this would be a good place to raise a family. At the time of my Davis faculty interview I was 3 months pregnant. Funny how that works!
As a veterinary student, did you ever imagine yourself taking this journey and having these professional experiences?
At that time, I couldn't have been more certain that I would be a practicing mixed animal veterinarian in rural Colorado. At our 20-year vet school reunion, my classmates were amazed that I had become an academic because I was so clinically focused in vet school. I must confess, I never could have imagined this journey, and I am so grateful for it.
In retrospect, what do you wish you’d known as a veterinary student or early in your career?
I wish I had had better interpersonal communication and listening skills back then. I came from a family where my father talked at us, not to us. My best ‘conversations’ were generally with animals back then. I also wish I had known how important it is to prioritize fun. As the oldest daughter in a large family (7 children within 10 years of age) and student with limited finances who had to work throughout undergrad and vet school, I felt like I was always in ‘survival mode’. Living in Scotland and Kenya and having friends who encouraged me to play, explore and go on safari really helped me learn how to have fun. Even if it’s just taking 5 minutes to dance, chat with a friend, enjoy nature or play with your pets, it is so important to make time for fun. I do more of those things now, but I wish I had realized this sooner.
Would you have changed anything about your time in veterinary school?
I had a pretty great vet school experience and loved all the clinical time we had at CSU. Thankfully, I never had to worry about grades because I was thrilled to be in vet school and found almost everything fascinating and relevant. If I were to make one change, I wish I had taken more time for fun, played more intramural football and danced more. My special loves back then were belly dancing and country ‘swing’.
Would you have changed anything about your time since graduating veterinary school?
I wouldn’t change the path I have followed. Yet, along the way, I would do anything if I could decrease the stress on students, faculty, staff, and practitioners. There’s so much pressure on everyone and our folks, both in veterinary practice and academics, are incredibly hard working and conscientious. I wish we could find a way to better support each other and experience more of the joy in this profession.
Did you have any mentors or role models along the way that helped or inspired you? Please provide an example of how they helped you or what qualities they had that made them a good mentor? How did you find them?
My first mentor was an amazing woman who as my 4-H leader, taught me that to be a true horsewoman, I also needed to be a ‘caballera’, or a gentle person. In junior college I had a crazy, fun chemistry professor who loved raptors and raptor rehabilitation. He took three of us students (driving non-stop from Colorado) out to a raptor rehabilitation conference at UC Davis conference in 1975. This was my first-time to visit California. That trip and his support impacted my life in ways I wouldn’t have imagined when I was 20. I will also be forever grateful to the pathology professor at CSU who helped me with the Marshall scholarship and my mentor, Duncan Brown, who was annoyingly determined that I get a PhD. In gratitude I later named a human parasite we discovered after him, Babesia duncani. While I was at ILRAD, I realized that the epidemiology lab I was working in was not the best long-term choice for me so I wandered up to the molecular biology lab. Thankfully, I was warmly welcomed and mentored by the head of the lab who was a Tanzanian Maasai, Harvard-trained physician. His open, creative approach to research was an inspiration to me. In the case of all of these, and other invaluable mentors I was blessed to have in my life, the qualities they shared were integrity, open-minded creativity, and an inspiring passion for what they did themselves and taught me. Somehow, they all saw my potential and I felt that they ‘believed’ in me in ways that gave me the confidence to explore new, uncertain career and research pathways.
Tell me about any pivotal moments or key turning points that shaped your career.
My biggest pivotal moment was on that road trip with my brother, mid-way through my senior year of vet school when I realized that I needed to live in another country. I had other aha moments when I decided to go to junior college and when I visited Davis for the first time. They have all been little intuitive feelings that I didn’t understand at the time. My research career has remained exciting and fun by periodic ‘pivots’ I’ve made and pursuits that were most often inspired by my student and faculty collaborators. Discovery of new babesia parasites, tackling the challenges of neosporosis in cattle and neurologic disease in horses as well as exploring the land-to-sea transmission of Toxoplasma to marine mammal have been key to a fun, fulfilling career. I love challenging the dogma and being open to new possibilities in research and life. My most recent pivotal moment was the recent decision to transition into retirement.
Tell me about one or two challenges, setbacks or obstacles that you faced along the way on your professional journey. How did you address those?
The two most challenging times in my journey were when I first came to UC Davis in 1988 and then 8 years later. To be honest, I often wonder how I ever got hired at UC Davis. At the time I had few publications, no teaching or grant-writing experience and no idea what I was going to do for research. All of my research experience was from working on theilerial diseases of cattle that didn’t occur in the US. At that time the US Department of Agriculture wouldn’t have even approved the importation of fixed blood smears from infected cattle into the country. One of the wonderful things about working at UC Davis is that between our veterinary clinic, the state diagnostic lab system and referring clinicians and physicians, problems just came to me. From those problems research projects emerged and grew in unexpected ways. A blood smear from a dog in southern California and human patients here and in Washington that all had small intraerythrocytic parasites, as well as histopathology sections from aborted bovine fetuses, stranded sea otters and horses with ataxia all led to challenging, fun research investigations and in some cases, the discovery of new parasite species. I focused on the problems, bringing teams together, and securing funds to support our efforts. I didn’t let myself get scared or competitive in the hope of getting tenure. From the beginning, I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay here. Having a DVM degree I knew that I could always go into a clinical practice if I didn’t like working in academia. Although people were always telling me to focus and build my lab to highlight my expertise in protozoology, I knew that wasn’t my style. The ‘secret sauce’ for me was to work with others as a collaborative team and we would all succeed together. If that approach wasn’t appropriate or good enough for tenure at UC Davis, I was ready go to clinical practice or back to Africa. Having a DVM and those back-up plans were reassuring. Fortunately, everything worked out. When I first arrived at UC Davis, I had a British husband and a 4-month old baby. My second son was born 2½ years later before I got tenure.

Balancing work and family was always a challenge, particularly as my husband worked for a research institute in Nigeria and ran projects in Mexico, Honduras and west Africa. After 8 years in Davis, I thought we were doing well; our sons were thriving and we had just moved to a home in the country. At work, teaching was fun and I had a productive research program and tenure. Finally, I could relax, or so I thought until my husband decided he was moving back to Nigeria, without us. Needless to say, this was the most devastating and painful crisis of my life for which I was totally unprepared. I had so many people depending on me at that point, not only my sons but also all the students and staff that I supported in what was by then a large research program. Clearly, I survived that disaster and managed as a single mom to raise our sons and ‘keep the boat afloat’ at work. What I learned from that experience was the value of professional therapy/counseling and spiritual guidance. With that combination I was able to recover from what seemed at the time to be a terrible failure and also, thankfully, to discover how to live my best life joyously and with compassion for myself and others. The flexibility and financial security of my position at UC Davis was invaluable. Most of the people I worked with didn’t know what I went through at the time; however, those who did were critically important in supporting me.
What was the most important lesson you learned as a veterinarian, and still remember today, and would want to tell vet students about.
Stay open. People talk about being focused and planning, which are good things. However, you also need to listen, watch, and talk to people. There might be other paths worth considering that will bring you even more joy. You don't always have to plan every step. Listen to your intuition. There are ways to keep your options open, you don't have to be locked into your career. Finding mentors who can help and support you is very important. Don't be so critical of yourself and lock yourself into things that don’t make you happy. Sometimes what you perceive as a failure, can be a major opportunity and blessing, both in your career and your personal life.
What’s been the biggest highlight of your career so far?
I’ve had an incredible and fun research career working with wonderful people to make exciting discoveries. Most often I was in a leadership position because I was able to bring people together and find funding to pursue our ideas. Although, interestingly, one of my most memorable research experiences was as an assistant (not the leader) on a research project in Baja CA where I was a ‘whale whisperer’. My job was to lure baby whales close to our boat so that their mothers would follow and we could collect samples from their blowhole exhalations. Believe me, there is nothing like looking directly into the eye of a baby whale! I’ve been fortunate in my career to have been acknowledged far beyond my wildest dreams. I attribute this to my colleagues who have been both amazing collaborators and advocates for me. Being unexpectedly elected to the National Academy of Medicine was a real highlight because it was a testimonial to the impact of teamwork and the One Health approach. Overall, the greatest highlight and satisfaction in my professional career has been to see the success and joy of the people I’ve been able to mentor and support in my career. In my personal life, my greatest accomplishment and joys are my sons, Alex and Ian, who have always been my inspiration to be a better person. From the time they were children to the present, they have taught me so much about environmental conservation. These lessons and their passions have positively impacted my One Health research and love of nature.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell me that you think would be helpful or relevant to veterinary students or early career veterinarians?
If you are a veterinary student, young professional, or even an ‘old’ professional, recognize that you have tremendous knowledge, skills, and insight. You can contribute so much to the world through your efforts to improve the health of animals and people, and reduce our negative impact on the environment. You are not limited to what you can contribute unless you limit yourself. You are community leaders that will be respected as committed health professionals if you get involved with your community.