Dr. Theresa
Bernardo is coming to Ontario Veterinary College to take up a new research
chair on relationships between humans and animals and on using technology to
improve animal health.
IDEXX
Laboratories has donated $1.5 million for the research chair.
Bernardo
will move Sept. 17 from the University of Michigan, where she has worked on
public health and epidemiology while she also headed knowledge management and
communications for the Pan American Health Organizataion.
The
official title of her research chair is Emerging Technologies and Bond-Centred
Animal Health Care.
The
Ontario Veterinary College spent eight months searching for a suitable
candidate for the research chair.
Dr.
Kerry Lissemore, interim OVC dean, said Bernardo was chosen because she has
spent the past 28 years using emerging technologies for global veterinary and
public health in more than 30 countries.
“We
are fortunate to have attracted someone with Theresa’s experience and
reputation,” Lissemore said.
Bernardo
will co-create new learning experiences for student veterinarians that allow
them to use emerging technologies to improve the care of their patients and
strengthen their relationships with animal owners and among the veterinary
team.
She
will help develop a world-class research and graduate training program
connecting veterinary medicine and epidemiology with emerging technologies,
including social media and veterinarian-supported web-based care.
She’ll
also use epidemiology and other methodologies to address key questions for animal
health-care providers.
Bernardo
will be based in the Department of Population Medicine.
She
hopes to use emerging technologies — smart phones, the “Internet of Things,”
big data and artificial intelligence — to improve the health and wellbeing of
animals and their caregivers and communities.
She
has designed and co-developed a multilingual disease surveillance and mapping
system used in more than 100 countries and adopted by the World Organization
for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations.
She
was a member of the OIE’s working group for epidemiology and informatics and
has been a consultant for the Canadian International Development Agency and
Fortune 500 companies.
She
received her veterinary degree from OVC in 1984, and a master’s degree in
epidemiology from the University of Prince Edward Island.
