The Team

Karin Orsel

After completion of my DVM degree in 1996, I worked in several veterinary clinics. In 1997, I returned to the university in a clinical lecturer position. After a 5-year appointment, I was offered an assistant professor position that I combined with finishing both my MSc and PhD degrees in veterinary epidemiology and economics. After I finished my PhD in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, The Netherlands in May 2007, I continued as a tenured assistant professor until I began my appointment at the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM) on February 1, 2008. At that time, there was an influx of new faculty, with the major task of preparing a curriculum prior to the arrival of the first class of DVM students in September 2008. In 2011 I received the membership of the European Boards of Bovine Health Management.

Over the years at the UCVM, we have dealt with many challenges associated with building a new faculty, including: designing and developing a new curriculum, extensive recruitment, negotiations for office and lab space, renovating and building teaching and research facilities, and constantly changing demands and issues. With my 10 years of experience at a Veterinary Faculty in Utrecht and my extensive teaching background, I enthusiastically supported the process wherever I could. For years, I served on both the curriculum working group as well as the curriculum committee (chair) to provide input into curriculum development. It has been an ever motivating and inspiring environment, with faculty striving to have the veterinary profession reach its full potential in serving the needs of animals, society and the environment.

After arriving in Canada, I have aligned my research, teaching, and service activities with the academic principles of the University of Calgary: student success; excellence in research, scholarship and creative activities; interdisciplinary education and research; and return to the community. By spending significant time in the community, I have been able to build networks both in scientific as well as in the agricultural community. I am now reaping the benefits of that investment, for example, through invitations for meetings with producers and practitioners and phone calls from DVLC members seeking support and advice.

I have been extensively involved in the development, implementation, and assessment of the DVM curriculum, with a special focus on herd health management. I have mentored numerous undergraduate students in research, thereby exposing them to cattle health. I a proud of a vibrant team that is publishing in peer-reviewed journals, we have successfully secured research funding in competitive grants, given invited talks at international scientific meetings. Interdisciplinarity is a hallmark of almost all of my research and teaching, and is demonstrated through collaborations in both areas. Finally, return to the community underlies everything that I do as a faculty member at the University of Calgary; furthermore, this ethic is consistently instilled in my graduate students. In that regard, knowledge translation from academia to the community, as well as from the community to academia, are integral components of their graduate training.

Focus of my research:

MAP-research
Disease transmission at the wildlife-livestock interface
Application of modern technologies in disease detection in feedlots
Pain and welfare; lameness in beef and dairy cattle
Foot-and-Mouth Disease expertise

Focus of teaching at UCVM:

Graduate teaching and supervision, including supervision HQP
Clinical activity
Bring herd health aspects to the curriculum
Course Coordinator VETM520 (Advanced Health Management)
Affiliated with Veterinary Agri-Health Services, Airdrie

Service component:

Veterinary Science Animal Care Committee
Organizing committees
National MAP meeting, UCVM’s international beef cattle health committee

Ana Hernandez Reyes (MSc student)

Ana is a veterinarian from Mexico. She received her DVM in 2018 and completed a specialization in veterinary microbiology in 2020 at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM). Driven by a strong interest in wildlife and infectious diseases, during her undergraduate thesis, she studied paratuberculosis in zoo ruminants. She has also completed internships in pathology of domestic and wild animals. Ana started her master's program under the supervision of Dr. Karin Orsel in September 2021. Her project focuses on the diagnosis and clinical description of paratuberculosis in wood bison and associated risk factors.

Muhammad Jehangir Asghar (MSc student)

Jehangir is a veterinarian from Pakistan. He completed his DVM from the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in 2022. He worked with parasites and bacteria with a One-health approach. His major research was focused on Antimicrobial Resistance surveillance in Avifauna. After graduation, he joined an international NGO to work closely with the community and stray animals to eradicate dog-mediated Rabies from Pakistan without compromising animal welfare. This motivated him to pursue his graduate studies focusing on Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases. He joined the team to work on the co-morbidities of Johne’s Disease in farmed bison in Alberta. Jehangir is also running a welfare project for the empowerment of underprivileged women through technical education in Pakistan. He enjoys playing soccer and watching movies in his free time.

Mohammod Misbah Uddin (PhD student)

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 related determinants on dairy farms with a history of abortion. In September 2022, he embarked on his journey at the University of Calgary as a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Karin Orsel. 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.

Sanjaya Mijar (PhD student)

Sanjaya is a third-year Ph.D. student with Dr. Orsel. He served as a veterinarian for the Government of Nepal for a few years before being selected as a Fulbright scholar for his master’s studies at the University of Missouri where he graduated in veterinary public health in 2019. Following this, he came to the University of Calgary as a Ph.D. student in 2021. His work mainly focuses on the health and production management, and welfare assessment of beef cattle and calves, especially the multidimensional assessment of commingling preconditioned and auction-derived calves in the feedlot and weaning stress on beef cattle in the ranch.

Susan Pyakurel (MSc student)

Susan is a veterinarian from eastern Nepal. His desire to work with animal diseases motivated him to apply to the vet school in Nepal where he got his admission in 2011. For his undergraduate thesis, he studied brucellosis in dairy cattle in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park. During his professional career from 2017 to 2021 as a field veterinarian, he realized that he enjoyed research in molecular epidemiology and microbiology more than anything. He eventually quit his job and joined his current master’s project at the University of Calgary. He primarily studies anaerobic bacteria in the context of foot rot and digital dermatitis in beef cattle for which he applies techniques such as qPCR, 16s rRNA sequencing, bacterial culture, and antimicrobial resistance gene detection using WGS. He is also investigating the clinical characteristics of BFR and BDD using histology, lameness scoring, and survey. He aims to work in infectious zoonotic diseases in the future.

Website

Nathanael Herry Lutevele (MSc student)

Nathanael is a veterinarian from Tanzania. He completed his Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine in 2018 and worked as a tutor at the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and as a field veterinarian in Tanzania. During his professional career, his passion for improving the welfare of animals ignited him to join an NGO dedicated to improving the welfare of animals in Tanzania and work as a secretary. He organized campaigns to raise awareness about animal welfare in the community and collaborated with international organizations in organizing spay and neuter programs in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 2020, he was awarded a “Teach the Teachers” training scholarship from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association through the Global Pain Council and was trained in animal pain management for 6 months at the University of Montréal, Canada. He started the master’s program at the University of Calgary under the supervision of Dr. Karin Orsel and Dr. Maria Camila Ceballos in September 2022. His current research interest is in low-stress cattle handling practices in beef cattle.

Other Graduate Students (Karin' involvement)

As part of my appointment at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and adjunct appointment in the Faculty of Medicine, I serve on several supervisory committees. The students and their projects are separately presented.

Angelica Petersen Dias (PhD candidate)

Angelica is a veterinarian from Brazil who completed her DVM in 2015 and her MSc in Animal Science in 2018 at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. She worked as a part-time dairy practitioner for five years before coming to Canada. In the meantime, she also worked in the dairy industry as a quality assurance supervisor for two years and as a clinical ruminant Instructor in a vet school in Brazil for three years. She began her PhD degree at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in May 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Jeroen De Buck working with Bovine Digital Dermatitis microbiology in dairy cattle.

Ellen de Jong (PhD candidate)

Ellen de Jong is a MSc Animal Science student from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her passion for dairy cattle started at a young age-- living in a house surrounded by cows just outside the city of Rotterdam. A small sidestep was made during her bachelor study, where this interest in ruminants led her to become an active member of the “sheep and goat study club”. Fortunately for us, she decided to return to studying dairy cattle and did her master thesis at University of Calgary, under supervision of Karin Orsel. This experience led her to consider a PhD and since January 2020, Ellen is a PhD student in Herman Barkema’s lab working on reducing mastitis-related antimicrobial use on dairy farms in BC and Alberta.

Sulav Shrestha (PhD candidate)

Sulav is a veterinarian from Nepal and completed his BVSc and AH degree from Tribhuwan University in 2009. He has five years of experience working with the rural communities of Nepal for their livelihood improvement. In 2013, he was awarded with New Zealand Development Scholarship to pursue his Masters degree from Massey University, New Zealand. His research was focused on monitoring reproductive performance using the energy balance indicators in dairy cattle. To continue his passion in dairy research, he joined University of Calgary in 2019 to pursue his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Frank van der Meer. His current research focuses on understanding the strategy of controlling Bovine leukosis in the dairy farms of Alberta by using proviral loads as the indicator for removal of high risk animals.

Tshering Choden (MSc student)

Tshering Choden is from Bhutan. She completed her BVSc & AH from Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, India in 2018. In January 2019, she joined as a veterinarian under the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) of Bhutan. Her passion to pursue a master’s degree linked her to joining UCVM in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Frank van der Meer. Additionally, she has Dr. Karin Orsel and Dr. Guido Van Marle as her supervisory committee member. Tshering’s research effort attempts to understand the impact of preconditioning factors in beef cattle through immunophenotyping of the immune cell population and to observe viral-neutralizing antibodies in vaccinated animals against common bovine respiratory disease (BVD) pathogens.

She enjoys being out on the farm with animals as well as being cocooned in the lab shell. She is passionate and intrigued about the virosphere, immunobiology, infectious disease, and molecular epidemiology.

Venkateswara Rao Parimisetti (PhD candidate)

Rao is a veterinarian from India who completed his BVSc & AH from Pondicherry University in 2007. He completed MVSc in the discipline of Veterinary Parasitology in 2009 from Madras Veterinary College working on molecular typing of poultry Eimeria. He received Dr. Ramanujachari Memorial award for the best outgoing MVSc student in Veterinary Parasitology. He was working as Assistant Professor at Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University prior to joining as PhD student with Netaji Subhas ICAR International fellowship in September 2019 under Professor John Gilleard to investigate Cattle protozoan parasites (Eimeria, Neobalantidium, Buxtonella) diversity using deep amplicon sequencing approaches.

Jawad Afzali (MSc student)

Jawad is a veterinarian from Afghanistan and he completed his DVM degree from Herat University in 2018. He has five years of experience working with companion animals and free-roaming dog populations in highly populated cities like his hometown, for their welfare improvement and controlling zoonotic diseases. He got his DVM in a research-based program with his research focused on the Trap, Spay/Neuter, Vaccine, and Release (TSNR) program with free-roaming dogs in Herat city. To continue his studies, he joined the University of Calgary in 2022 to pursue his MSc under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Susan Kutz. His current research focuses on evaluating the impacts of subsidized, high-volume preventive veterinary clinic events on animal welfare and public health in two remote indigenous communities in Northern Alberta by analyzing collected data before and after the clinic event from the two selected communities.

Undergraduate Students

List of all Undergraduate Students

Jessie Kennedy. Foot rot and its microbiological relationship with digital dermatitis. Supervisor. Summer student. May - Aug 2023.

Vanessa Boone. Foot rot and its microbiological relationship with digital dermatitis. Supervisor. Summer student. May - Aug 2022.

Makaela Douglas. Lameness on dairy farms and the use of risk assessments to identify CCPs. Supervisor. Summer student, May – Aug 2018.

Maaike Caron. IRT to detected clinical stages of digital dermatitis. Research internship,DVM student, supervisor, Mar – Jun 2018.

Ivana Simkova. Lameness on dairy farms.Supervisor, graduate student exchange, Sep-Oct 2017.

Ellen de Jong. The role of digital dermatitis on Alberta dairy farms. Master student externship, supervisor, Sep 2017-Jan 2018.

Chelsey Paquette. Increasing lab skills for a diversity of pathogens. Summer student, Bishop's University, Quebec. Supervisor, May-Aug 2017.

Mart Wolbers. The accuracy of detecting Digital Dermatitis in a milking parlor. DVM student, supervisor, Mar – Jun 2014

Fokke Sikkema. Digital Dermatitis synamics in relation to lameness. DVM student, supervisor, Mar - Jun 2014.

Devon Wilson. Neospora as a cause of dairy cow abortion in the Fraser Valley. Summer student, University of Saskatchewan, SK, Canada, supervisor, May-Aug 2014.

Ilse Geurts. Digital Dermatitis; associations with lameness and evaluation of a milking parlour screening method. Undergraduate student, University of Wageningen, the Netherlands, supervisor, Nov 2013- March 2014.

Miranda Marchand. Lameness in dairy cattle. COOP student, University of British Columbia, supervisor, June 2013- June 2014.

Marion Neuville. Developing laboratory culture and PCR protocols for Erysipelotrix Rhusiopathiae. Internship, undergraduate Poitiers University (Biology, Health and Medicine), Fr, supervisor, May - Jul 2013.

Jan Stalwick. Evaluating data collection on Alberta dairy farm using baseline data for comparison with data collected after management and facility changes. Summer student, DVM student UCVM, supervisor, May - Jul 2012.

Melissa Westling. Risk factors that influence the prevalence of digital dermatitis in Alberta freestall dairy barns. Summer student, DVM student UCVM, supervisor, May - Jul 2012.
Caleb Quinn. An evaluation of feed to gain ratio performance between phenotype on Angus cattle. Summer student, supervisor, with IBRS, Strathmore and VAHS Airdrie. May - Jul 2012
Rheanne Ritchie. Gastrointestinal parasitism and relation to body condition and pregnancy in West Greenland caribou. Independent research project in Zoology 507-Special Problems in Zoology supervisor, with Dr Ruckstuhl, winter 2012.
Jessica Hillier. MAP; diagnostics and genotyping. Independent research project in Zoology 507-Special Problems in Zoology, supervisor, with Dr Buret, winter 2012 and summer student supervisor, May - Jul 2012.
Lisa Neffe. MAP infection in sheep and caribou in Greenland. Project for the German Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences) with a major in Biology, supervisor, Feb - Jun 2012.
Chantal van Es. Gastrointestinal parasite diversity and the relation to climate in West Greenland Caribou. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Feb - May 2012.
Margriet Krom. The Lameness of Gait Scoring- Identifying Claw Lesions in Dairy Cattle. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Oct 2011 - Feb 2012.

Simone Kranenburg. The association between footbath management and digital dermatitis in dairy cattle. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Jan – Mar 2012.
Jacomien Kromhout. The influence of flooring type in standing areas on gait score on Alberta dairy farms. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Jan - Mar 2012.
Annick Brouwers. The use of HOBO’s in lameness detection in Alberta dairy cows. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Dec 2011 - Feb 2012.
Renee Been. Exploring the relationship between larvae abundance and individual caribou health. Research internship, DVM student, co-supervisor, Jul - Oct 2011.
Marianne Vervest. Comparing winter tick (Dermacentor albipictus) density according to sampling area on moose hides. Research internship, DVM student, co-supervisor, Jul - Oct 2011.
Anet Biggelaar; The effect of milk production, lactation number and days in milk on lying time. Research Internship, Agricultural College Den Bosch the Netherlands, supervisor, Aug - Oct 2011.
Marina Wammes. Morbidity in dairy calves, in a research setting, from birth to 90 days of age. Research internship, Agricultural College Den Bosch The Netherlands, supervisor, Aug - Oct 2011.
Casey Jacobs. The influence of management practices on hoof health, lameness and cow longevity on Alberta dairy farms. Summer Student, supervisor, May - Aug 2011.
Megan Beal. The influence of management practices on hoof health, lameness and cow longevity on Alberta dairy farms. Summer student, DVM student, supervisor, May - Aug 2011.
Larissa Condas. The influence of management practices on hoof health, lameness and cow longevity on Alberta dairy farms. Summer student, DVM, supervisor, UCVM, Jul - Aug 2011.
Stijn van den Goor. Biosecurity in research settings working with dairy calves. Research internship, Agricultural College Den Bosch The Netherlands, supervisor, May - Aug 2011.
Sven Bruggeman. Cow and herd level observations of standing and lying time on Alberta Dairy Farms. Research internship, Agricultural College Den Bosch The Netherlands, supervisor, May - Aug 2011.
Kevin Ansems. The impact of weaning age on rumen development. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Feb - May 2011.
Wicky Vossen. Evaluation of the ?-interferon assay for the early diagnosis of bovine paratuberculosis based on cell mediated immunity. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Sep 2010 - Jan 2011.
Maarten van den Bosch. BRD in feedlots: comparison of laboratory versus cowboy diagnostic methods. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Sep - Dec 2010.
Franca van der Woude. Prevalence of Dicrocoelium dendriticum in elk and cattle fecal samples in southwestern Alberta. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Jan - Apr 2011.
Lodi Lameris. Prevalence of Fasciloides magna in elk fecal samples in Southwestern Alberta, Canada. Research Internship, DVM Student, supervisor, Jan - Apr 2011.
Johanna Keur. Contamination of hay and other food supplies in a research environment; the potential role for transmission of pathogens. Research internship, Agricultural College Den Bosch The Netherlands, supervisor, Aug - Oct 2010.
Emmanuelle Cotin. Fascioloides magna and Dicrocoelium dendriticum in elk in southwestern Alberta: a descriptive study based on modified sedimentation techniques of elk fecal samples. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Jun - Aug 2010.
Suzanne Verkleij. The importance of environmental mycobacteria on Mycobacterium avium subsp paratuberculosis in calves. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Jun - Aug 2010.
Taya Forde. Preceptor program for Faculte de medicine veterinaire, Université de Montreal. DVM student, supervisor, Jan – Feb 2010.
Julie Duval. Collecting Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis free-calves from Alberta dairy farms. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Jan – Apr 2010.
Karin Seegers. Range expansion of Lungworm (Umingmakstrongylus pallikuukensis) in muskoxen on Victoria Island Nunavut. Research internship, DVM Student, supervisor, Sep – Dec 2009.
Renee Span. Filter paper blood samples for detecting progesterone in Rangifer spp. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Sep - Dec 2009.
Bregje Witlox. The role of pasture rotation on Dermacentor albipictus infestation in reindeer. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Apr - Jul 2009.
Carlijn Wauben. Clarification of reindeer management and common diseases in reindeer. Research internship, DVM student, supervisor, Apr - Jul 2009.

Past Students

List of Past Students

Staff

List of current staff members

James Jian Wang: Group lab manager and oversees the operation of six different labs including the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Center-Alberta. He comes with 26-year lab experience and feels very excited and happy to work with wonderful people in Dr Karin Orsel group.
Uliana Kanevets
Charlotte Pickel - Field assistant