Our students, faculty and staff at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine are problem-solvers, innovators and life-changers providing world-class care and making ground-breaking discoveries every day that advance animal and human health.
Continue reading to see how our community is thriving as we put that mission into action.
Recognitions
- Under the mentorship of assistant professor in virology Dr. Elisa Crisci, CVM undergraduate research assistant Abby Williams was named a runner-up in the NC State Office of Undergraduate Research’s Spooky Research Slam. Her research focused on the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, which can silently spread through entire swine populations.
- Victor Rivas, a student in the college’s DVM/Ph.D. program, has joined classmate Ankita Gupta as a student associate editor for the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. Rivas is one of just three members of the new cohort.
- Three past house officers — Dr. Sarah Klein, Dr. Tyne Hovda and Dr. Wen Wang — passed their certifying exams and are now diplomates of the American College of Veterinary Anesthesia and Analgesia.
- Dr. Yea Ji Jeong, an anatomic pathology assistant professor, and Dr. Stephanie Fuetsch, a comparative pathology resident, passed Phase II of the pathology boards, officially coming diplomates of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists.
- Three recent house officers — Dr. Rajdeep Multani, Dr. Tania Hunt and Dr. Spencer Fennik — passed their certifying exams on their first attempts to become diplomates in the American College of Veterinary Radiology.
- Graduate student Isabella Livingston won best poster at the Genetics and Genomics Academy Symposium for her poster on “Genetics and Genomics Aid in Identification of Parasites from Non-Native Species in an Endangered Galapagos Pinniped.”
- Associate professor Laurianne Van Landeghem has been named as an organizer for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology’s GI Science Research Conference in 2026.
- Nicole Adams, a graduate student in the Peng Lab, is a finalist in the NC State University Three Minute Thesis competition. She will compete in the finals on Nov. 11 at 3 p.m. in the James B. Hunt Jr Library.
- Assistant professor Dr. Santosh Mishra has been named associate editor of The Journal of Pain. He has also been elected as president of the Triangle Society for Neuroscience.
- More than 30 CVM students received donor-supported externship funding through the college. Supported by the CVM Externship Fund, the Terrence M. Curtin Scholarship Endowment, the Harry Family Veterinary Externship Endowment and the Jack H. and Frances A. Britt International Experiential Learning in Veterinary Medicine fund, nearly $49,000 was awarded to students to participate in off-campus educational opportunities. This semester’s student recipients are: Brittany Aveni, Don Banks, Kasey Boger, Ashley Buckley, Meghan Chung, Faith Church, Caitlyn Coleman, Shanti Coleman, Courtney Collishaw, Megan Crisafulli, Gabrielle Elders, Anna Froneberger, Ankita Gupta, Isabella Hertzig, Rebekah James, Molly Jones, Maya Keefer, Zahra Khan, Hannah King, Isabel Ku, Emily Lentz, Renee Loeffel, Vienna Lunking, Melissa McBride, Megan Mulder, Caitlin Passaro, Betsy Rizzo, Lindsay Stone, Seline Stoop and Lindsey Wright. Learn how you can support student experiences.
- Dr. Katie Sheats, associate professor of equine primary care, has been chosen as the new associate dean and director of professional education and admissions at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine.
Grants
- Dr. Kelly Meiklejohn, an associate professor of forensic science, received two awards from the National Institute of Justice. She will collaborate with US Fish and Wildlife to explore the potential of hybridization capture to permit species identification in challenging leathers for one project. For the other, Meiklejohn will collaborate with Dr. Matthew Breen’s lab to conduct an assessment of the increased performance that ddPCR provides over qPCR for DNA quantification in forensic science.
- Associate Professor Dr. Gustavo Machado received a grant from USDA-AFRI Foundational and Applied Science-Data Science for Food and Agricultural Systems to study a novel multilevel model of swine disease to assess the effectiveness of African swine fever control and eradication strategies. He received another grant from the Swine Health Information Center to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of vehicle and trailer rerouting to prevent the spread of disease.
- Several NC State College of Veterinary faculty members and graduate students received “Think, Collaborate and Do Ideation Awards” from the NC State Comparative Medicine Institute. The awards encourage interdisciplinary collaborations to advance animal and human health. Awarded projects and CVM community members are:
- “Enhancing Development of New Therapeutic Candidates for Neutrophilic Asthma through Experimental and Mathematical Modeling Approaches.” Dr. Rosemary Bayless.
- “Investigation of Ultrasound Medullary Rim Signs as an Early Imaging Biomarker for CKD in Cats.” Drs. Gabi Seiler, Shelly Vaden and Autumn Harris.
- “A Field-Deployable CRISPR Diagnostic Platform for Early Canine Cancer Detection.” Dr. Matthew Breen.
- “Accelerating the Discovery of Functional lncRNAs with Large Language Models.” Dr. Xinxia Peng.
- “Data-driven Causal Discovery of Cell-cell Communication Impacts from Transcriptomic Data: Recovering Signaling Mechanisms of Lung Development.” Dr. Jorge Piedrahita.
- “Innovative Computational Methods to Decipher Cell Cycle Dynamics from Single Cell Transcriptomes of Easily Cultured, yet Complex Eukaryotes.” Dr. Nick Buchler.
- “Development of DRIFT Therapy to Boost Pulmonary Drug Delivery.” Dr. Jian Zhang.
- “Leveraging bioinformatics to explore the gut-lung axis in foals with neonatal sepsis.” Megan Palmisano and Taylor Gin.
