Faculty mentors in the Veterinary Investigation & Leadership Program (VILP) represent a wide range of research areas and come from a number of departments within the College and the University.  As an intense summer research experience is the cornerstone of the VILP, it is important that prospective applicants give careful consideration to the faculty mentor with whom they wish to work.  Below is a partial list of previous VILP mentors, featuring only those who are currently active faculty members.

Faculty Photo	Faculty Member Department Affiliation	Research Interests
	Carrie Adler Molecular Medicine	Molecular and cellular mechanisms driving organ regeneration; how stem cells produce differentiated cells that coalesce to form functional organs, in an animal where regeneration proceeds without inhibition
	Craig Altier Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Molecular basis of Salmonella pathogenesis; the genetic and environmental control of epithelial cell invasion
	Avery August Microbiology & Immunology	Regulation of T-cell activation, development and function; T-cell differentiation; mast cell function and eosinophil function
	Sarah Caddy Microbiology and Immunology	Viruses, Immunology, Canine, Antibodies
	Casey Cazer Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Epidemiology of zoonotic diseases, evidence-based medicine, and One-Health; developing methods to improve antimicrobial resistance surveillance and track multidrug resistance
	Richard Cerione Molecular Medicine	Signal transduction growth factor receptors; protein structure; drug design and chemical biology; signaling cues that direct cell proliferation, differentiation and development
	Paula Cohen Biomedical Sciences	Etiology of spontaneous birth defects in mammals; mechanisms of meiotic recombination; DNA repair proteins in meiosis and recombination; germ cell development; ovarian development
	Aimee Colbath Clinical Sciences	Therapeutic interventions for musculoskeletal disease including osteoarthritis, fracture repair and tendon/ligament disease
	Kevin Cummings Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Application of epidemiologic approaches to investigate the ecology and transmission of Salmonella and other foodborne pathogens among a wide variety of hosts
	Charles Danko Baker Institute for Animal Health & Dept. of Biomedical Sciences	Medical genetics and genomics and cancer biology research
	Mandi de Mestre Biomedical Sciences	Molecular mechanisms at maternal-fetal interface, genetics of miscarriage, immunobiology placentation
	Diego Diel Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Molecular mechanisms underlying virus-host interactions, focusing on the mechanisms underlying viral immune evasion that contribute to virus virulence and disease pathogenesis
	Anushka Dongre Biomedical Sciences	Understanding mechanisms that can potentiate the efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade therapy in the context of poorly responding tumors
	Julia Felippe Clinical Sciences	Cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in B cell response; neonatal immunology and response to vaccination; immunomodulation using biologic response modifiers; cancer immunotherapy; characterization of primary and secondary immunodeficiencies
	Kathryn Fiorella Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences	Planetary Health/One Health, fisheries, livelihoods, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, environmental change
	Andrew Flyak Microbiology and Immunology	Antibody response to viral pathogens, vaccine development
	Deborah Fowell Microbiology and Immunology	Regulation of T cell function in inflammatory and infectious disease
	Laura Goodman Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Pathogen discovery and surveillance, with focus areas on tick-borne disease and antimicrobial resistance; exploring the underlying mechanisms of infectious disease emergence and identifying biomarkers to detect and prevent emerging threats to humans and animals
	Gunther Hollopeter Molecular Medicine	Cell biology, identifying additional mediators of endocytosis and determining their function at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels, with long-term goal to understand how the endocytic machinery influences the form and function of multicellular systems, and structural biology
	Kelly Hume Clinical Sciences	Cancer biology; veterinary oncology; clinical oncology; molecular oncology; DNA damage; chemosensitivity and novel therapeutics
	Renata Ivanek Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences	Epidemiology and ecology of infectious and foodborne diseases; mathematical modeling; spatial epidemiology; risk assessment; public health
	Mason Jager Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences	Viral pathogenesis, hepatopathology, viral discovery, hepatitis
	Toshi Kawate Molecular Medicine	Membrane proteins, Chronic pain, Cell biology, Biochemistry, Biophysics
	Natasza Kurpios Molecular Medicine	Tissue morphogenesis; cell shape and architecture; organ development; gut morphogenesis; mammary gland biology; breast cancer
	Colleen Lau Microbiology & Immunology	Immune memory, natural killer cells, cytokine signaling, epigenetics
	Dave Lin Biomedical Sciences	Axon guidance; neurodevelopment; epilepsy; autism; genomics
	Sabine Mann Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Metabolic diseases and insulin signaling; nutrition; epidemiology; metabolic and nutritional immunology
	Jessica McArt Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Epidemiology of periparturient diseases in dairy cattle; disease economics; on-farm methods for accurate disease diagnosis
	Mandy McGeachy Microbiology and Immunology	Th17 cell regulation and functions during infection and autoimmune disease
	Andrew Miller Biomedical Sciences	Studying the mechanisms underlying neurologic disease in animals utilizing both spontaneously arising disease and experimental models in a variety of laboratory animal species
	Raina Plowright Public and Ecosystem Health	Transmission of pathogens between species, links between land-use change and pathogen spillover, dynamics and drivers of viral pathogens in reservoir host populations, and Implementation of science for the protection of ecosystem and human health
	Brian Rudd Microbiology & Immunology	Developmental immunology; host response to infection
	Richa Sardana Molecular Medicine	Protein quality control, membrane trafficking
	Praveen Sethupathy Biomedical Sciences	Functional genomics; gene regulation; molecular genetics; gastrointestinal physiology; stem cell biology; metabolic disease
	Carolyn Sevier Molecular Medicine	Signaling of cellular oxidative stress; molecular mechanisms used by cellular pathways that sense and signal redox imbalances within the cell
	Glenn Simmons Biomedical Sciences	Cancer Biology, role of lipids in the regulation of inflammatory and other immunological processes in tumor microenvironment, in vitro tumor models for testing various therapeutic approaches in non-small cell lung carcinoma
	Kenneth Simpson Clinical Sciences	Gastrointestinal and pancreatic physiology and pathophysiology across species, interactions between the enteric microenvironment (microbial, dietary, and chemical) and the GI tract in health and disease (inflammation and IBD), and the application of culture-independent methods to detect bacteria in clinical samples
	Tracy Stokol Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	The role of tissue factor (coagulation factor III) in hemostasis (particularly thrombotic disorders) and cancer metastasis
	Alexander Travis Baker Institute for Animal Health & Dept. Biomedical Sciences	Animal health and fertility as well as efforts to help alleviate poverty and hunger in developing countries, work that indirectly benefits local wildlife
	Brian VanderVen Microbiology and Immunology	Mycobacterial diseases, understanding how M. tuberculosis acquires and utilizes nutrients during acute and chronic phases of disease and applying this understanding to discover new anti-TB drugs, using chemical-genetics, genomics, and biochemical approaches to discover and characterize the novel M. tuberculosis proteins and pathways required during infection.
	Robert Weiss Biomedical Sciences	Genome maintenance mechanisms and metabolic pathways in cancer and other diseases
	Andrew White Biomedical Sciences	Cancer biology; stem cell biology; biochemistry and cell biology
	Gary Whittaker Microbiology & Immunology	Pathogenesis of influenza viruses, corona viruses and arena viruses; host range and receptors; activation of membrane fusion; macrophage- and neurotropism; anti-viral therapeutics; diagnostic tests; virus-bacteria co-infections
	Matthias Wieland Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences	Udder health, calf management