Who We Are - Suzanne Millman / AB&W UofG

Suzanne Millman, B.Sc.(Agr.), Ph.D. Dr. Millman joined the faculty of the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in July 2002 as Assistant Professor (now Associate) of Applied Animal Behaviour & Welfare in the Department of Population Medicine. She completed her undergraduate degree in the Department of Animal & Poultry Science at the University of Guelph, and worked in Europe for several years, as a shepherd in Scotland and a groom for showing jumping horses in Greece, before returning to Guelph to complete her doctorate in applied ethology with Prof. Ian Duncan. Prior to joining the faculty at OVC, Dr. Millman spent two years in Washington, DC as Director of Scientific Programs in the Farm Animals & Sustainable Agriculture Section at the Humane Society of the United States, the largest animal protection organization in North America. At OVC, Dr. Millman is responsible for teaching concepts of animal behaviour and welfare in the veterinary curriculum, and provides expertise about behaviour problems and welfare concerns for food animals and horses. Her research program focuses on techniques for assessing animal welfare in clinical and farm environments, behaviour needs of animals during states of illness and injury, and behaviour problems in livestock and horses.
	Students
	Anneliese Heinrich Anneliese grew up in Orangeville, Ontario where she spent her youth on horse farms and traipsing through the acres of field and forest surrounding her family’s home in search of wildlife. She has worked with many types of animals including horses, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, dogs, cats, reptiles and birds. She was trained on the job as a veterinary technician and currently works in a local small animal practice. She completed her B.Sc (Hons.) at the University of Guelph in August 2005 and immediately began a Masters degree, investigating the efficacy of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug Meloxicam for relieving the pain following dehorning in dairy calves.
	Janet Higginson Janet is from rural eastern Ontario, where she realized at a young age that she wanted to work with animals and was very interested in their behaviour. Janet graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Animal Biology from the University of Guelph. She has worked as a veterinary technician in a small animal hospital and as a surgery technician in the large animal clinic at the Ontario veterinary College, gaining experience working with a wide variety of animals, from small exotics to heavy horses Janet decided to pursue her interest in animals and their behaviour as a laboratory technician in the ethology lab. She has worked on various projects, including a cow comfort study in collaboration with Dr. Dave Kelton, examining the effects of varying lengths of chain on the behaviour of dairy cows housed in a tie-stall barn. In January 2007, Janet started her Master’s degree. She is examining sickness behaviour in swine, looking at the social needs and responses of these animals when infected with Salmonella. She is interested in contributing to the field of knowledge on sickness behaviour in hopes of improving the welfare of animals that are ill.
	Kate Sawford, DVM Kate graduated with a doctorate of veterinary medicine from the Ontario Veterinary College in June 2006. Over the course of her degree she spent time in various countries including Iceland, India, and Japan. While in Iceland she engaged in research into the social behaviour of horses, she has a particular interest in determinants for bond formation between unfamiliar individuals. Since completing her doctorate Kate has been working in private veterinary practice. She is returning to school in September to begin a PhD in epidemiology and veterinary public health at the University of Calgary.
	Cindy Todd Cindy Todd grew up in eastern Ontario on a family dairy farm. She spent her early years working on the farm, which was where she developed a keen interest for animal agriculture. In the spring 2004, Cindy completed her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degree at the University of Guelph. In the fall of the same year, she began pursuing a Masters of Science in Epidemiology in the Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate studies, Cindy has gained a great deal of research experience. She completed a senior undergraduate research project that examined the effect of rumen fluid supplementation on neonatal dairy calf performance and health. Cindy has worked as a dairy research assistant at the Kemptville Campus Research Station. During her graduate program, she has also served as a dairy health management research associate in the Department of Population Medicine. As such, Cindy has had an active role in the research planning and design, as well as data collection, analysis and reporting for several clinical trials in dairy cows and calves. Cindy’s Masters program investigates the efficacy of meloxicam, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, as a supportive therapy for dairy calves with neonatal calf diarrhea complex.
	Uta von Borstel Uta grew up and worked on dairy and horse breeding farms in Northern Germany and Iceland before her interest in natural sciences led her to pursue studies in agricultural sciences at the Universities of Guelph and Halle (Germany). She investigated for her B.Sc. (hons.) the effect of handling on semen quality in stallions, and for her M.Sc. in quantitative genetics, outliers in dairy cow test day records. Beside her studies, she worked part-time in the Hannoverian Horse Breeding Association, in a large animal clinic, on several projects as research assistant, and, of course, with her passion, the training of young riding and racing horses. Presently, Uta is co-supervised for her Ph.D. by Dr. Ian Duncan, and Dr. Linda Keeling from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. She investigates the unconscious communication of fear between horses and riders and hopes that her work will help to reduce the number of accidents happening with horses.
	Summer Students
	Christine Culbert, BSc. Christine grew up in Queensville and Sharon Ontario, both small rural areas just North of Toronto. From a young age Christine knew that she wanted to be a Veterinarian, as she loved working with all animals and insisted on having pets around the house. After a co-op term in high school at the Queensville Veterinary Clinic with her mentor, Dr. Henderson, she decided to go for her dream and that Guelph was the place to be for an aspiring veterinarian. She completed her undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Biology in 2006 at the University of Guelph and has now finished her first year of the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree program at the Ontario Veterinary College. Christine enjoys working with small and large animal species and has a deep rooted love for horses, as since the age of 7 she has horseback ridden both for pleasure and competition. Her past research includes working with a strain of blind leghorn chickens to examine the effects of light on the laying cycle and to sequence the GnIH receptor found in the brain tissues of these birds. After completing her DVM degree, Christine plans to work in a mixed animal veterinary practice with the possibility of specializing in a more specific area of vet medicine later in her career.
	Kristy DesRoche, HBSc Kristy was raised west of Toronto, where she spent her youth surrounded by a variety of different pets. She graduated with a degree in Zoology from the University of Western Ontario. Her undergraduate research included investigating the effects of the type of echolocation on the thoracic morphology of different species of bats; she also visited various Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia where she looked at the effects of deer populations on local vegetation. Kristy will be entering her second year of the Veterinary Medicine program at the Ontario Veterinary College, Guelph University this coming fall. She is working in Dr. Millman’s lab as a summer student in the Summer Research and Leadership Program.
	Gabriel Jantzi Gabriel spent about half of his childhood on a dairy farm in southern Ontario and the other half on a humanitarian mission in Kiev, Ukraine, with his family. Gabriel is an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph majoring in Microbiology with intentions of studying human medicine later. This is his second summer working for Dr. Millman. Our ethological research does not directly concern human behaviour, but Gabriel really enjoys learning more about animal behaviour. He is particularly interested in sickness behaviour as exhibited in farm animals, most likely because he is from a dairy farm and he recently had surgery to remove a brain tumour (which gives him a personal angle on the concept of sickness behaviour).
	Tanya Sparling Tanya graduated in 1999 from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, with a bachelor of science in psychology and a minor in biology. After adventures in dotcoms, recruiting and teaching overseas, she decided to pursue her passion and return to school. She has just completed her second year at Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph. Uncertain of whether her future lies in the practice of small animal medicine or in research, she is excited about the opportunity to learn from - and work alongside - her mentors this summer.
click here for former students

smillman @ uoguelph.ca | 519-824-4120, ext. 53677

2005 Andrew Colgoni, template 2003 OVC ITS | best viewed with IE 6.0+ or Firefox