September 15, 2022
The College of Veterinary Medicine has announced the recipients of its College Achievement Awards, which were presented at the CVM Fall Convocation.
The recipients include:
Merit Employee of the Year: Tammy Krock, secretary in the Department of Microbiology and Preventive Medicine. During her time in VMPM, Tammy Krock has repeatedly stepped up to perform duties beyond normal expectations for her job description to make sure the many things that make the department run smoothly are done promptly, competently and in a collegial manner.
Merit Mid-Career Employee of the Year: Crystal Henry, Central Service Technician in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. Crystal Henry brings a unique skill set, excellent customer service and intellectual knowledge to her role in the Central Sterilization Unit in the LVMC. Henry provides an exceptionally high standard of care to the small and large animal hospitals.
Merit New Employee of the Year: Courtney Melohn, veterinary technician in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. Courtney Melohn’s dedication to the equine service team is outstanding. Her care of patients in the hospital is detailed and she has consistently improving. This past year over 100 neonatal foals were admitted to the large animal hospital ICU and Melohn was there to care and monitor these foals while they were hospitalized.
Resident of the Year: Dr. Lauren Page in the Ophthalmology Section in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. Dr. Lauren Page has been described by her colleagues as “an amazing team player, “evident by her service to the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital on the House Officer Committee and her engagement on the College’s Diversity Committee. Page also excels in the Ophthalmology Section where as a natural educator she is ably to simplify complex topics and ignite interest in this challenging specialty.
Graduate Student of the Year: Nicole Jandick in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine. In her time in Dr. Cathy Miller’s lab, Nicole Jandick has matured from a promising young scientist to a leader among her peers. She daily takes on daunting challenges in the lab including finding a way to make a recombinant virus that express antigentic peptides against the HER2 protein to create a cancer vaccine. Jandick single-handily took on this project and has found that reovirus replicates in and kills HER2+ breast cancer cells and partially modifies the HER2 tumor proliferation pathway.
Post Doc of the Year: Dr. Amro Hashish in the Department of Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine. Dr. Amro Hashish is an integral part of the poultry medicine team in the VDL. Since joining the program, he has utilized his advanced training in molecular diagnostics to transform the VDL’s diagnostic capacity by developing and validating more than 15 different molecular diagnostic assays for a plethora of poultry pathogens. His efforts have substantially enhanced the diagnostic capacity of the VDL to be better prepared to combat the poultry industry’s challenges in Iowa and beyond.
Service Team of the Year: Equine Veterinary Team. This award is given to the faculty members of the Equine Medicine, Surgery and Theriogenology sections along with the barn staff, technicians and VDL for their extraordinary efforts in navigating the Equine Herpes Virus-1 outbreak for almost three months in 2021.
International Service Award: Victoria Lenardon, lead public health veterinarian in the Center for Food Security and Public Health. In her role in the CFSPH, Dr. Victoria Lenardon develops educational materials on foreign, emerging, zoonotic and reportable animal diseases for use by veterinary medical professionals. She is responsible for the CFSPH Spanish language resources and website while leading the center’s activities with veterinary professionals in the Americas.
Outstanding Achievement in Extension or Professional Practice Award: Dr. Eric Burrough, professor in the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. During his tenure in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Eric Burrough has demonstrated a sustained record of scholarship and impact while earning national and international recognition for his efforts. Burrough is the president-elect of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians and has given invited presentations across the world and has achieved international recognition as a thought leader in food animal diagnostic medicine and swine enteric infectious disease research and outreach.
Outstanding Achievement in Extension or Professional Practice Award: Dr. Rachel Allbaugh, associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences. As the Ophthalmology Section leader, Dr. Rachel Allbaugh has worked tirelessly to build confidence with referring veterinarians across Iowa and the neighboring states through improved communication by enhancing clinical service offerings, improving surgical outcomes for patients, and offering outreach efforts through continuing education lectures.
Early Achievement in Extension of Professional Practice Award: Dr. Jarrod Troy, assistant professor of veterinary clinical sciences. In his role in the large animal hospital, Dr. Jarrod Troy provides emergency equine services for the only full-service equine referral emergency hospital in Iowa. He provides consultations to the referring veterinary community of Iowa, provides equine, ruminant and camelid elective surgeries and has pursed additional training to provide novel surgical techniques to the hospital clients.
Outstanding Achievement in Teaching Award: Dr. Tamara Swor, clinical associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences. Since joining the CVM faculty, Dr. Tamara Swor has had the primary task of organizing, staffing and revamping the surgical education program. Swor is responsible for delivering didactic lectures, laboratories and surgical procedures. Through her skill, knowledge, organization and patience, Dr. Swor ensures that the VM2 and VM3 students are exposed to and provided this training.
Early Achievement in Teaching Award: Dr. Justin Brown, assistant teaching professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine. Not only does Dr. Justin Brown provide didactic courses in the undergraduate and professional veterinary curriculum and clinical medicine rotations specific to swine medicine but he delivers lectures at other veterinary colleges through the Swine Medicine Education Center. Brown currently serves as the instructor-in-charge of four courses and is the co-instructor-in- charge for two additional courses.
P&S Research Award: Karrie Daniels, research scientist in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine. Karrie Daniels consistently performs above and beyond through the acquisition of advanced skills in highly complex laboratory assay. She has contributed innovative and creative solutions to experimental design across a number of lab and animal-based experimental platforms.
P&S Excellence Award: Jeremy Kellen, audio visual support in Information Technology. For nearly 20 years, Jeremy Kellen has created functional and up-to-date learning spaces for Iowa State faculty, staff and students. He not only makes classroom technology intuitive for all user levels but he offers top notch training services and technology support. Since coming to work for the College of Veterinary Medicine, Jeremy has updated numerous spaces and has impacted teaching and learning on a large scale.
P&S Mid-Career Award: Dr. Katie Woodard, lead public health veterinarian in the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Dr. Katie Woodard provides leadership and direction to the VDL’s Client Services functions. She has done exemplary and pioneering work in her role that centers on improving the overall quality, efficiency and value of the diagnostic process and services provided to VDL clientele. Woodard’s innovative contributions are affecting all aspects of the VDL client experience from the point of filling out a submission form to generating a shipping label to retrieving and summarizing the results from one or many case submissions to monitoring the best submission practices discounts being captured.
P&S New Professional Award: Rylie Vander Plaats, manager of clinical support in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. In her short time in the LVMC, Rylie Vander Plaats has had an enormous impact by combining listening with affecting change and providing effective support during staffing crises. Vander Plaats manages the technical staff in the small animal ICU, a team that is constantly on alert in a high-stress environment.
P&S New Professional Award: Mingxi Guo, diagnostic associate in the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Mingxi Guo stepped in to replace a veteran benchtop technician who performed the Serology Section’s highest volume antibody assay in the VDL. Additionally, Guo was instrumental in helping the Serology Section develop a new sample flow for the purposes of mitigating risks of cross contamination of PRRS nucleic acid.
Frederick Douglass Patterson Diversity & Inclusion Award: Dr. Rachel Allbaugh, associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences. Dr. Rachel Allbaugh has been a longstanding advocate in promoting a positive, inclusive and welcoming culture with the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences and the LVMC. Allbaugh has sought out opportunities to further educate herself in a variety of current DEI topics and interests in veterinary medicine. She serves on the First Day of Class Diversity and Inclusion committee and arranges a wide breadth of speakers to engage with students and continues to be active locally, providing book club discussions regarding DEI topics and collaborates with campus service organizations and projects such as VOICE, ISCORE, MLK Service days and many others to both educate herself and the CVM community.
CVM Champion Award: Tammy Miller, custodian in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. Tammy Miller is responsible for the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital in her role as a custodian. While it is no doubt that Miller’s tangible work product and dedication to cleanliness and safety are essential to daily operations it is her attitude, reliability and dedication that make her most deserving of this award. She makes an effort to introduce herself individually to new faculty and get to know those who reside in her service area while going out of her way to assist faculty and students and often times values their time over hers.
CVM Award for Mid-Career Achievement in Research: Jonathan Mochel, associate professor of biomedical sciences and veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine. Dr. Jonathan Mochel has maintained an outstanding research productivity as evidenced by more than 100 publications with many in high-impact journals. He has received almost $8 million in research funding including $5.5 as lead investigator and as served as major professor for 45 graduate students and supervised eight postdoctoral fellows. Mochel’s research has a strong translational component, showing that administering chemotherapeutics sequentially improves the clinical efficacy of combination therapies.
CVM Award for Early Career Achievement in Research: Luis Gimenez-Lirola, associate professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine. Dr. Luis Gimenez-Lirola has been on an impressive trajectory of success in animal and human health research. In a short period of time, Gimenez-Lirola has been part of 30 successful grants totaling $2.3 million related to gaps identified in diagnostic case investigations on a diverse group of endemic and emerging diseases. Much of the research he does translates into new diagnostic assays onboarded by the VDL which is a major reason why the VDL is on the leading edge of diagnostic medicine and food animal infectious disease research.
