CVM Names Faculty, Staff Award Recipients

Amy Hodnefield, senior technician in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center, is an integral part of the small animal medicine service and a driving force behind the success of the canine blood donor program.Through her unwavering commitment, exceptional skills and passion for teaching, Amy has made a lasting impact on the training of students and house officers, the care of our patients, and the day-to-day excellence of the Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital.

DeNae Foster, receptionist in the Office of Academic and Student Affairs, daily demonstrates her ability to address and complete any task given to her in the face of multiple daily interruptions. She has the ability to work through the most challenging of requests and she does so without complaint or concern.

Alysha Bilharz, a certified veterinary technician in the Equine Surgery service, daily demonstrates her commitment and dedication to providing excellent service not only to clients and faculty and staff but to fourth-year veterinary students. When ancillary services are pulled in multiple directions, Bilharz is more than willing to step in and help where needed. Without her skills and willingness to help, the Equine Surgery’s efficiency would significantly be reduced causing longer wait times for clients and patients.

Erin Berger, coordinator for the Internal Medicine Service, has become an essential and irreplaceable member of the team, making a profound and lasting impact on the operations, communications and overall service quality. She has expanded her responsibilities to include client follow-up, initial screening of client questions, interservice coordination, and direct communication with referring veterinary clinics.

Zack Bieberly, a resident in the Internal Medicine service, is a passionate advocate for resident and intern wellbeing, while providing clinical excellence, compassionate patient care and an unwavering dedication to the advancement of veterinary medicine. A resident in the Internal Medicine service, Bieberly is a passionate advocate for resident and intern wellbeing, always encouraging his colleagues to find balance amid the intensity of clinical life. Bieberly excellence extends to his patients and clients. He remembers every patient by name long after the initial visit and genuinely celebrates their recovery.

Allison Vander Plaats, a resident in Veterinary Field Services, is a primary on-call veterinarian in the field services unit in addition to teaching six courses providing lectures, experiential learning and clinical skill instruction. She spends half of her residency dedicated to a USDA NIFA grant on enhanced delivery of bovine production medicine using Cloud-Based Teaching Modules.

Maria Chaves, PhD candidate in veterinary microbiology and preventive medicine, was selected for her research on identification and characterization of AIV using nanopore sequencing as well as her numerous graduate student leadership roles. In the College of Veterinary Medicine she has served as the CVMAGS Seminar Coordinator and has connected different research groups, students and faculty together to improve integrative research across laboratories throughout the college.

Nyzil Massey, a post-doc in biomedical sciences, has driven impactful discoveries in neurotoxicology with a special focus on organophosphate nerve agents. As a lead investigator on an NIH-funded U01 project, he demonstrated his leadership in planning and executing complicated experiments. Massey’s productivity is reflected in nine peer-reviewed publications including three high-impact articles. He is also an effective mentor to both graduate and undergraduate students guiding them through complex behavioral assays, molecular techniques and neuroimaging analysis.

Veterinary Clinical Sciences Core Lab consists of of Drs. Dipak Sahoo, Maria Merodio and Al Jergens. They have provided expertise, equipment and research resources to faculty and students to support diverse research activities. The scientists have played a principal role in managing research. These include input on study design, patient enrollment in clinical trials, data and sample collection and analysis, enrolled patient follow-ups, statistical analysis support and assistance with writing.

Iddo Friedberg, professor of veterinary microbiology and preventive medicine, has had a sustained international impact in his research and teaching endeavors developing a strong reputation as a leader in the bioinformatics field and through the engagement of individuals from at least 60 countries. For more than two decades he has organized an annual international meeting on computational protein function prediction, bringing together computational biologists, experimental biologists and biocurators to share ideas and create collaborations.

Brenda Mulherin, clinical professor of veterinary clinical sciences, is the sole faculty dentist in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. Her schedule not only includes caring for her own patients, but includes vital telephone consultation and radiographic interpretations for referring veterinarians throughout the state. She serves as a critical resource for complex cases, providing guidance and advanced treatment options. She is a consistent and highly sought-after speaker at conferences while providing invaluable continuing education not only in Iowa but on the national and international level.

Meredith ‘t Hoen, clinical associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences, is an integral member of the Emergency and Critical Care Service, providing advanced care to some of the most critically ill patients in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center. She has revamped the core student clinical rotations for ECC and as as result has enhanced the educational value of the rotation by placing greater emphasis on the longitudinal care of hospitalized patients while creating more opportunities for students to perform key medical procedures and developing a curated bank of clinical cases to broaden the students’ exposure to a wide variety of pathologies.

Steve Carlson, associate professor in biomedical sciences, has both lecture and laboratory teaching responsibilities in the professional DVM and graduate curricula. His student-centered teaching approach is focused on understanding, mutual respect and a determination to help students succeed as practice-ready veterinarians. Carlson’s nominator described him as “the most collegial teaching faculty member they know.”

Ariel Nenninger, assistant professor of veterinary pathology, uses her skills as a classroom instructor in making clinical interpretations of case material to impart “real-world” knowledge to her students. She organizes her didactic lectures with clarity so that students can readily find answers while presenting information in a way that prioritizes and facilitates connections across previously learned material. Nenninger is also directly responsible for assisting with residency training of clinical pathology residents. She participates in one-on-one clinical pathology case reviews with residents from other programs including anatomic pathology, internal medicine, surgery, oncology and dermatology.

Heather Brewer is the College of Veterinary Medicine’s sole graphic designer and puts her personal touch on virtually every college publication, website, digital display and numerous social media posts. For the past two years, Brewer worked every workday upgrading the college’s websites. She has also been instrumental in creating marketing and communications materials for student recruitment, fundraising efforts and promotion of the new Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

Molly Lee has led three $1.5 million international collaborative projects in the Center for Food Security and Public Health. These projects, funded by the Gates Foundation to develop a “Day 1 Platform for Veterinary Education” through educational resources and teaching tools that are used by veterinary faculty around the world.

Amelia Mindthoff, research scientist in the Office of Curricular Assessment and Teaching Support has embraced “out-of-the-box” solutions that have significantly improved the day-to-day functions of the office. She has reduced the time to create a 4th year clinical remediation report from a one-week process to just one day. She has also authored 16 assessment reports which have provided important information to the college community for curricular improvements.

Karen Durbin, the client relations manager in the Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center, has transformed how LVMC employees work, collaborate and connect, not only with each other but with hospital clients. Durbin serves as the primary point of contact for client concerns, feedback  and service recovery. She exemplifies professionalism in her approach, listening intently, gathering facts and working collaboratively to find solutions that are respectful, reasonable and uphold the reputation of the LVMC.

Phyllis Fisher, finance specialist at Iowa State, works closely with the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Departments of Veterinary Pathology, Veterinary Clinical Sciences and Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine. With an incredible attention to detail Fisher completes financial tasks swiftly and with precision ensuring the soundness of all of the operations she works with by tailoring that support that best fits each department’s needs.

Lindsey Alley, administrative assistant in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, serves as the first point of contact for new faculty and locum veterinarians. Alley’s welcoming nature is immediately evident and she goes above and beyond to help new colleagues feel valued and welcome from their first day. She also plays a pivotal role in organizing the College’s annual intern and resident orientation, onboarding as many as 25 new veterinarians each year.

Josh Beck, associate professor of biomedical sciences, has established himself at the international level as a respected and sought-after voice in the field of malaria research focused on better understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which the malaria parasite of humans modulate host red blood cells and hepatocytes to facilitate infection. His research is not only developing key insights into malaria biology with the potential for control strategies but is also developing genetic tools that are used by others.

Giovani Trevisan, assistant professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine, has a research focus on epidemiological tools and concepts for early detection of emerging or re-emerging animal health threats and generation of epidemiological information to support producers and veterinarians in making informed decisions for disease surveillance, monitoring, prevention and control. He has published 42 peer-reviewed publications and has been PI or contributor to over $9 million in competitive research funding.