Julian Montoya Lopez, DVM, was recently selected as the recipient of the Carlos Pijoan Graduate Student Fellowship in Swine Medicine for the 2020–21 school year. Montoya Lopez came to the U to pursue his master’s in the fall of 2019, after serving as the director of health for a large swine production company in Colombia.

“Being awarded with the Pijoan Fellowship is a huge opportunity to continue deepening my understanding in swine health production medicine, and prepare myself to be able to contribute to the prevention, control, and elimination of swine diseases,” says Montoya Lopez. His research focuses on the epidemiology of the PRRS virus in pig herds, including the prevalence and risk factors for PRRS in near to market pigs together with assessing the presence of PRRSv in pig barn manure pits.

The Pijoan Fellowship intends to further the education of the next generation of swine specialists through applied research on the transmission, diagnosis, control, and elimination of economically significant diseases of swine, while honoring Carlos Pijoan, DVM, PhD. Pijoan was known for his work in the field of swine respiratory disease, and joined the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine in 1982, where he founded the Swine Disease Eradication Center.