New director takes helm of AVMA Scientific Activities Division

Schaumburg, Ill.

-- The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has a new director of the Scientific Activities Division.

Dr. Heather Case takes over for Dr. Elizabeth Curry-Galvin, who was promoted to assistant executive vice president of the association.

The Scientific Activities Division is involved in pharmaceuticals and biologics, public health and food safety, agriculture and aquaculture, emergency preparedness and response, and the environment.

“Our work in Scientific Activities lays the foundation for many of the association’s policies as well as AVMA’s input into federal guidelines and regulatory issues,” Case says.

Case joined the division in 2007 and has been the AVMA’s national coordinator for emergency preparedness and response, and the program coordinator for the AVMA VMAT teams. She also has served as staff support to the Committee on Disaster and Emergency Issues and the One Health Initiative Task Force.

Prior to joining the AVMA, Case was a public health resident at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Animal Health and Food Safety and owned an equine dental practice in Minnesota. During Hurricane Katrina, she was a member of a VMAT emergency-response team and served as commander of shelter medicine at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center outside New Orleans after the storm.

Case received her DVM degree in 1998 from the University of Minnesota and was an AVMA Congressional Fellow in 2006-2007. In 2006, she received a master’s of public health, leadership and public policy focus from the University of Minnesota. Case became a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine in 2008.

In other news, the AVMA appointed Dr. Elizabeth Sabin to the new post of staff coordinator of international affairs.

Sabin will be responsible for helping strengthen the AVMA’s international partnerships by working with the World Veterinary Association and similar groups and will serve as the staff consultant to the AVMA Committee on International Veterinary Affairs. In addition, she will continue as an assistant director in the association’s Education and Research Division.

Sabin joined the AVMA in 1998 and since 2001 has served as assistant director in the Education and Research Division. She is staff consultant to the Educational Commission for Foreign Veterinary Graduates and the Council on Research and is secondary staff consultant to the Council on Education and the American Board of Veterinary Specialties.