Graduate Students

Growing up in the Northwest Territories inspired Jessie to become a Veterinary Technician, as veterinary care in the Northwest Territories is limited and inaccessible to most communities. The core of her career in veterinary medicine has been assisting in pioneering northern Arctic community programs, addressing animal welfare, disease education, and providing veterinary medical access in remote communities. Her recent position as Head Veterinary Technician in the Galapagos Islands allowed her to apply her experience of working in remote communities while leading a team of veterinary students during spay neuter clinics on the remote islands in the Galapagos. She recently published a scientific paper with the local Galapagos government, documenting a canine distemper outbreak that occurred during her managerial position there; a virus that is also endemic amongst canine populations in the NWT. Throughout these endeavors, she became aware of the interconnectedness of cultural ways of life, domestic animal health, and wildlife health in remote communities such as in Canada’s North and the Galapagos Islands. She went back to school to obtain her degree in Biology to enhance her knowledge of ecology, virology, and immunology in hopes of bringing this education back to the North. Her Master's project is under the supervision of Dr. Frank van der Meer’s lab at the U of C and will be focusing on what specific virus families are infecting barren-ground caribou herds in northern Canada. The aim is to understand the impact of viruses on health and reproduction of northern caribou and to develop diagnostic tests that will enhance health and monitoring of these keystone species in the future. 

Will Justus is an American PhD student who joined the Kutz lab in September 2023. Will is a wildlife ecologist and mammologist with a MSc from Bangor University in Wales and field experience in the mountains of the American Northwest. Will is investigating the effects of mineral nutrition on muskox health and the availability of trace minerals in arctic landscapes. As a part of his research, Will takes plant and soil samples from arctic habitats and uses muskox qiviut collected by community hunters. Will’s work will illuminate an understudied aspect of muskox health and habitat quality and may serve to help identify and treat vulnerable populations.

Caide is a veterinarian from North Carolina, United States. He completed his veterinary training in 2019 at North Carolina State University where he focused in zoological medicine. He practiced small and exotic companion animal medicine and shelter medicine in Missoula, MT, US prior to completing a Master of Preventive Veterinary Medicine degree at the University of California, Davis in 2022. Caide is interested in infectious disease mitigation and control among free-ranging wildlife populations, and he hopes to enter a sector of the veterinary field specifically devoted to environmental and free-ranging wildlife conservation efforts. His PhD thesis work is focused on improving our understanding of the disease ecology of the "Arctic clone" of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae that has been associated with mass mortality events of muskoxen in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in order to inform management and conservation efforts. In his free time, Caide is active in the outdoors (hiking, backpacking, camping, cycling, skiing, running), enjoys team sports, and is known to read for fun or become a vegetable on the couch on the occasional rainy day.

Erica was born and raised on a farm in rural Alberta. She graduated from St. Mary’s University, Calgary with a BSc in Biology in May 2020. During her undergraduate degree she studied Yellow-rumped warblers which involved recording and comparing their song between an isolated population in Cypress Hills and the mainland population in Kananaskis to see if their songs were becoming distinct. Furthermore, Erica is also an avid hunter and has hunted for several years. Through her experience observing wildlife and being in nature she wanted to learn more about wildlife health and conservation. These experiences fostered her love for wildlife and encouraged her to pursue a MSc with Susan in January 2021 and transferred into a PhD program in May 2023. Her research focuses on refining and expanding muskox aging protocol through techniques including tooth eruption pattern, cementum annuli analysis, and mandible morphometrics. She is also describing and assessing severe incisor pathology in muskoxen and the associated risk factors that can impact their health and population status. In her free time Erica loves to ride horses, ski, hike, hunt, and enjoy the beauty that Alberta has to offer.

Amish Dua has a Masters in Sciences with a Major in Biology from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, India. His research interests broadly lie around Indigenous knowledge, socio-ecological systems and wildlife health. His previous works involves projects with the shepherd communities in the Western Himalayas broadly concerning traditional knowledge and livestock health. He started his PhD in the September 2023 at University of Calgary with Kutz Research Group. His work mainly focuses on understanding and integrating the Indigenous knowledge of various arctic communities into better understanding long term changes in health and population of barren ground Caribou.

Mohammod Misbah Uddin is a veterinarian from Bangladesh. He discovered his interest in epidemiology and preventive veterinary medicine during the final year of his DVM studies. This fascination inspired him to concentrate his undergraduate research at Dhaka's Central Veterinary Hospital on the epidemiology of common diseases in dogs. Pursuing this passion, he attained a master's degree in epidemiology and conducted research on the burden of brucellosis and its associated determinants on dairy farms with a history of abortion. In September 2022, he embarked on his journey at the University of Calgary as a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Karin Orsel. Dr. Susan Kutz is a member of his PhD committee, and he is working on her community-based wildlife health surveillance projects in the Canadian North. His current research interests include wildlife disease epidemiology, evaluation of community-based wildlife health surveillance, the impacts of climate change on diseases, and disease dynamics.