Wildlife/Exotic Animal Medicine
Melanie Ammersbach
Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
(see also: Pathology/Virology, Non-human Primate Medicine)
Dr. Ammersbach is a veterinary clinical pathologist with a special interest in non-traditional species. The areas of expertise of clinical pathologists include clinical chemistry, hematology and cytology. Non-traditional species include exotic pets, zoo animals, wildlife and laboratory animals. There are many potential projects, including several collaborations with other faculty members, such as: 1. A collaboration with the primate center and Dr. Olstad to evaluate neutrophil morphology with inflammation (retrospective study), and cerebrospinal fluid analysis findings (retrospective and prospective) and their association with a number of diseases. 2. A collaboration with Dr. Van Hoy on a project validating and establishing normal reference intervals for blood gases and coagulation tests in pet minipigs and 3. A collaboration with Dr. Beaufrere documenting lipoproteins in birds (including cockatiels and flamingoes) using high resolution lipoprotein electrophoresis.
Feel free to reach out at mammersbach@ucdavis.edu for more information.
Faculty Bio
Hugues Beaufrère, DVM, PhD, DACZM, DABVP (Avian), DECZM (Avian)
Lipid disorders in birds and reptiles, clinical research in birds, reptiles, and small mammals
Dept of Medicine and Epidemiology – School of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Beaufrère main research area is on lipid disorders and lipid diagnostic tests in birds and reptiles such as studies on atherosclerosis, hepatic lipidosis, and plasma lipid biomarkers. Dr. Beaufrère is also very active in clinical research in companion zoological medicine on a variety of topics and has a special interest in applied biostatistics in zoological medicine.
Please email Dr. Beaufrere for more information.
Brian Bird DVM, MSPH, PhD
One Health Institute
(see also: Global Health/Projects, Immunology and Infectious Diseases)
Dr. Bird is a veterinarian and virologist with expertise in virus ecology and viral hemorrhagic fevers. He has an active research program in California and across Africa investigating zoonotic virus spillover and immunobiology from wildlife especially bats and rodents of high-consequence viruses, pathogen-detection, and the development of countermeasures ranging from vaccines for animal and human use to community-based risk mitigation. STAR student projects could range from laboratory analyses to field ecology depending on student interest and needs of currently funded projects.
Kirsten Gilardi, DVM, Dipl. ACZM
Wildlife Health Center
Dr. Kirsten Gilardi, DVM, Dipl. ACZM is Associate Director of the Wildlife Health Center (WHC). At the WHC, she serves as the Executive Director of the WHC's SeaDoc Society, a marine wildlife and ecosystem health program with on-the-ground operations in Washington state (under the leadership of Dr. Joe Gaydos) and in California, where SeaDoc runs the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project. As well, Gilardi co-directs (with WHC veterinarian Dr. Mike Cranfield) the Gorilla Doctors program, a partnership with the non-profit Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project that provides in situ veterinary care to wild human-habituated mountain and Grauer's gorillas in east-central Africa. Gilardi's clinical and research areas of expertise are in free-ranging wildlife health, with a current emphasis on One Health approaches to great ape medicine and conservation, and on marine and aquatic species (population health assessments, impacts of lost fishing gear on marine wildlife).
Please contact Dr. Gilardi at kvgilardi@ucdavis.edu.
Jenessa Gjeltema, DVM, Dipl. ACZM
Research Focus: Effects of anthropogenic litter (plastic) pollution on animal, human, and ecosystem health. Application, evaluation, and validation of clinical diagnostics and therapeutics in zoological species.
(See also: Anesthesia/Pain Management)
Affiliated departments: UC Davis One Health Institute, Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, and Department of Medicine and Epidemiology
As Assistant Professor of Zoological Medicine and Head Veterinarian at the Sacramento Zoo, Dr. Jenessa Gjeltema, DVM, Dipl. ACZM, a board-certified specialist in Zoological MedicineTM, provides both clinical veterinary service and engages in research in the field of Zoological/Wildlife Medicine.
Possible student research projects include:
- Development, evaluation, and validation of research techniques for the study of environmental microplastic contamination
- Investigation of the health effects of plastic pollution in animals and ecosystems
- Application, evaluation, and validation of clinical diagnostics or therapeutics in zoological species
- Other clinical research in the field of Zoological Medicine
To contact Dr. Gjeltema - jgjeltema@ucdavis.edu
Michelle Hawkins, VMD Dipl. ABVP (Avian Practice)
Anesthesia, analgesia, wildlife
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology School of Veterinary Medicine (see also: anesthesia/pain management)
Dr. Hawkins current research area is in advancing clinical and research techniques aimed at improving the health of wild birds of prey during rehabilitation. Her areas of particular interest include pain management and other therapeutics as well as specific infectious and toxicologic diseases affecting these species. Dr. Hawkins has a number of active research projects, and would be interested in talking to students who have an interest in clinical or basic science research in these areas.
Dr. Hawkins can be reached at mghawkins@ucdavis.edu.
Krista A. Keller, DVM, Dipl ACZM
VM: Medicine & Epidemiology
(see also: Microbiology/Parasitology)
I am a board-certified specialist in zoological medicine and my research, focused on of mycotic infections of reptiles, allows me (and my mentees) to ask clinically relevant questions to drive hypothesis-based research. I am interested in understanding all aspects of the host-microbe-environmental triad as it relates to infectious disease development to drive meaningful recommendations on the diagnosis and treatment of reptiles infected with mycotic agents.
My mentoring philosophy involves handing students a spark (an idea), then allowing them to light the fire (research and develop a research question) and helping them to appreciate all components of research from ideation, hypothesis creation, methodological planning, material list development, data collection and analysis, through dissemination on the local and national level.
I can be reached at kakell@ucdavis.edu.
Faculty Bio
Christine Kreuder Johnson, VMD, PhD
One Health Institute
(See also: Global Health, Epidemiology)
Dr. Kreuder Johnson is a Professor of Epidemiology and Ecosystem Health in the School of Veterinary Medicine and Director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute at UC Davis. Her research focuses on wildlife population health and the impact of ecological processes on species at risk and patterns of disease transmission in marine and terrestrial wild animal populations. Recent activities investigate zoonotic disease spillover dynamics, viral host shifts, further characterization of the animal-human interface, and epidemiologic patterns facilitating zoonotic disease transmission and spread. She provides epidemiologic support to federal and state agencies during unusual outbreak events and directs global surveillance activities for the Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program.
Contact info: ckjohnson@ucdavis.edu
Sam Ridgway, D.V.M., Ph.D., D.A.C.Z.M.*
Affiliated with UC Veterinary Medical Center – San Diego
President of the National Marine Mammal Foundation
Dr. Ridgway is one of the founders of the Navy Marine Mammal program starting in 1961 and has 48 years of experience in marine mammal medicine and research.
Link to Dr. Ridgway’s current publications
Link to Dr. Ridgway’s website
Please contact Peter Ernst pernst@ucsd.edu or Christina Sigurdson csigurdson@ucsd.edu first for more information.
Benjamin Sacks, Ph.D.
Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, Canid Genetics & Population Health
(See also: Genetics/Genomics)
The Canid Diversity and Conservation Laboratory specializes on ecology and conservation of wild canids and other carnivores, including the application of genetic techniques, disease surveillance, and field methods (see web site below). STAR students will initially learn necessary skills from students, technicians, and faculty, and will spend most of the summer collecting data for their project under faculty supervision.
Dr. Sacks can be reached via email at bnsacks@ucdavis.edu, or you can visit his website for more information.
Karen Shapiro, DVM, MPVM, PhD
VM: Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology
(See also: Microbiology/Parasitology, Epidemiology)
Dr. Shapiro is an infectious disease researcher focusing on transmission of zoonotic pathogens that pose a health risk to wildlife populations and people through water or food. Her research program targets the transport and fate of zoonotic pathogens in watersheds and coastal ecosystems; effects of landscape change and climate variability on disease transmission; impacts of water scarcity and impaired quality on human and animal population health, and food safety. In addition to her research program, Dr. Shapiro also oversees the VMTH parasitology diagnostic laboratory and provides expertise on protozoan pathogens in small, large and exotic animal patients. STAR students could become involved with projects focusing on the detection and epidemiology of protozoan pathogens in domestic animals, wildlife and environmental matrices. Specific topics that we are likely to focus on in summer 2002 include Tritrichomonas infections in kittens, Sarcocystis in wildlife, and Toxoplasma in feral cats.
CONTACT: kshapiro@ucdavis.edu
Esteban Soto-Martinez, MSc, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVM
VM: Medicine and Epidemiology (See also: Immunology, Microbiology, Pathology)
Dr. Esteban Soto is a board certified veterinary microbiologist who has an interest in aquatic animal health. Our laboratory main research interests are to understand the pathogenesis of important infectious diseases of wild and aquatic animals, and to develop strategies to protect animals from these diseases. Members in our laboratory study One Health, Aquatic Animal Disease, and Fish Disease through a combination of microbiological, molecular, and epidemiological methods. Current projects involve studying the ecology, diversity and host-pathogen interaction of Francisella noatunensis, Piscirickettsia salmonis, Veronaea botryosa, Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, Flavobacterium spp., Saprolegnia ferax, Koi herpes virus and other fish pathogens; and studying the ecology, diversity and host-pathogen interaction of hypermucoid Klebsiella pneumoniae in marine mammals.
Please email Dr. Soto-Martinez for more information - sotomartinez@ucdavis.edu
Lisa A. Tell, DVM
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology (See also: Food Animal Medicine/Food Safety, Pharmacology/Toxicology)
Dr. Tell is the Director of the Veterinary Drug Residue Laboratory and serves as the Regional Director for the Minor Use Animal Drug and the Food Animal Avoidance Database Programs. She has been a full-time faculty member of the School of Veterinary Medicine since 1994. Dr. Tell's research interests are veterinary drug pharmacokinetic studies for zoological and food animal species. She has a particular interest in treatment options for fungal diseases in birds.
Research studies in Dr. Tell's laboratory vary from pivotal data studies seeking label claims for minor food animal species (particularly goats) to clinically related pharmacokinetic studies for companion birds. Many of the food animal related studies focus on drug residues and residue avoidance in the interest of protecting public health. Research experience gained from working in Dr. Tell's laboratory varies from the in life phase of the pharmacokinetic study to the good laboratory practice bench-top research activities.
Dr. Tell is also the lead investigator for the UC Davis Hummingbird Health program that investigates diseases in free ranging hummingbirds in California. This program bands the birds, takes biometric measurements, and evaluates birds for infectious diseases.
PLEASE CONTACT DR. TELL : latell@ucdavis.edu
Renée Tsolis
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
(see also: immunology, microbiology)
Dr. Tsolis is a microbiologist studying host-pathogen interactions leading to disease during infection. Her laboratory uses a variety of animal models to study how two groups of zoonotic pathogens, non-typhoidal Salmonella and zoonotic Brucella species, interact with the immune system to cause disease. For non-typhoidal Salmonella species, Dr. Tsolis' group is interested in learning why underlying co-morbidities such as malaria and malnutrition increase the incidence of death from systemic infection in the developing world, and her laboratory has developed mouse models to gain insight into immunomodulatory effects of Vitamin A deficiency and malaria. For Brucella, the laboratory has developed models to understand both chronic infection that this group of organisms causes within the mononuclear phagocyte system and to interrogate placental infections in pregnant animals that lead to abortion in domestic animals. Collaborations with UCD research Dr. Luckhart in the Medical Microbiology department, Dr. McSorley in the Center for Comparative Medicine and Dr. Stephensen in the USDA Western Human Nutrition Research Center have been instrumental in establishing this interdisciplinary research program. The long-term goal of Dr. Tsolis' work is to uncover basic principles of how bacterial pathogens manipulate the immune response to cause disease and ensure their transmission to the next host.
Please visit Dr. Tsolis' website for more information.
Marcela Uhart, DVM
Wildlife Health Center
Dr. Marcela Uhart, DVM, is Director of the Latin America Program, Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center. Her focus is on free-ranging wildlife health research and conservation, especially in marine wildlife (particularly mammals and birds). She runs long-term projects with southern right whales in Argentina, and with penguins, albatrosses and petrels in several South American countries. Dr. Uhart also investigates disease outbreaks of conservation concern in native terrestrial wildlife. Her wildlife health research expands over a variety of topics, including infectious and parasitic diseases, zoonotic pathogens, pollutants including plastics, biotoxins, antimicrobial resistance, physiology, ecology and health risks from human interactions (e.g. whale entanglements). Uhart’s research aims for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem sustainability under a One Health approach that acknowledges the interconnections between wildlife, humans and the environment.
Please contact Dr. Uhart at muhart@ucdavis.edu
Michael Ziccardi, DVM, PhD
VM: Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center and VM: Medicine & Epidemiology
(See also: Epidemiology, Aquatic Health/Ecotoxicology)
Dr. Michael Ziccardi DVM MPVM PhD is Executive Director of the One Health Institute, and Director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) and California Veterinary Emergency Team (CVET). His work focuses on global oiled wildlife preparedness, response, and research as well as statewide domestic animal and livestock disaster response. Ziccard's clinical and research areas of expertise are in free-ranging wildlife health, with an emphasis on epidemiology. His current research focus is on the effects of petroleum on marine species.
Please email Dr. Ziccardi for more information at: mhziccardi@ucdavis.edu