University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine selects new dean

Peter D. Constable, BVSc (Hons), MS, PhD, former professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been tapped to return to the College of Veterinary Medicine as dean. He has spent the past eight years as professor of veterinary clinical sciences and head of that department at Purdue. If approved by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, Constable will begin in January 2014.

According to the university, Constable began his academic career at Illinois in 1993 as an assistant professor in the department of veterinary clinical medicine and served as the interim head of the department from 2004 to 2005 before leaving for Purdue. Constable earned his veterinary degree in 1982 from the University of Melbourne in Australia and completed his master’s degree in 1989 and doctorate in 1992 from Ohio State University. Beyond academia, he has also worked as an agricultural animal veterinarian in Australia and as a mixed animal practitioner in England.

Constable returns to Illinois as Herb Whiteley, DVM, PhD, dean of the college since 2001, steps down. Whiteley will transition to a new post at the university beginning with a sabbatical in preparation for developing collaborations between the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Constable will oversee the Chicago Center for Veterinary Medicine and the veterinary college, which prides itself on an expanded clinical experience for students.

Constable’s own clinical and research interests include acid-base physiology, fluid therapy, shock, calf diarrhea, surgical conditions of the bovine abdomen, biostatistics, pharmacokinetic modeling, veterinary education and the cardiovascular response to endurance training.