Tracy Hill, ’05 DVM, PhD, was with the Veterinary Medical Center at the University of Minnesota as a small animal internal medicine locum April 8–12 and will do so again July 8–12. After earning her DVM, she completed her small animal rotating internship and small animal internal medicine residency at North Carolina State University in 2009, completed a fellowship in interventional radiology at the Animal Medical Center in New York in 2011, and earned her PhD in comparative biomedical sciences at North Carolina State in 2012. She worked as a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh from 2012–2016 and is now an assistant professor in small animal internal medicine and interventional radiology at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine.

On January 27, the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon took place in Duluth, Minn. The Star Tribune covered the race, quoting musher and veterinarian Jen Freking, ’04 DVM, who has raced sled dogs for 30 years and owns Manitou Crossing Kennels in Finland, Minn., with her husband, Blake.

Manitou Crossing Kennels is home to more than 60 Siberian huskies, who race competitively in long-distance sled dog races throughout the United States and Canada. The kennel is devoted to the future of the working Siberian husky. Freking and her husband began working with Siberian huskies roughly 20 years ago and joined forces in 2000 with the goal of establishing a strong line of Siberian huskies.

The duo are both decorated mushers. Among other key accolades, Freking and her husband finished 9 seconds apart in the 2008 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, setting a new record for an all-Siberian husky team.

Samithamby Jeyaseelan, ’01 PhD, is now the William Jenkins Professor in Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University. Jeyaseelan is the Principal Investigator on a new $11.5 million NIH program to establish the Center for Lung Biology and Disease. Read more

Ahna Brutlag, ’06 DVM, ’11 MS, was recently promoted to director of veterinary services and senior veterinary toxicologist at Pet Poison Helpline, a division of SafetyCall International. Brutlag is also an adjunct assistant professor in Pharmacology/Toxicology at the CVM. 

Meetu Seth, '08 MS, recently defended her PhD at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is now a scientist at Intellia Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Polly Mattila, '06 PhD, is now a research scientist at the University of Pittsburgh. She recently moved to the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.

Humphrey Lwamba, '05 MS, is currently regional manager of the Horn of Africa Diagnostics Division of Roche Kenya Limited in Nairobi, Kenya.

Lisa McCargar, ’04 DVM, got married in Mexico in April.

Christine Sivula, ’05 DVM, and Jody Scholz, DVM, are co-directing a new laboratory animal medicine residency program that they started in 2017. This American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine-recognized program is a collaboration between Mayo Clinic and the U of MN. Its first residents are coming up to the end of their first year in the three-year program.