In addition to her role as the CWHC BC Regional Director, Dr. Himsworth also serve as the BC Ministry of Agriculture Regional Director, the Leader for Veterinary Science and Diagnostics at the Animal Health Centre, and an Assistant Professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Her research is focused on the surveillance of infectious disease, particularly zoonotic disease (i.e., diseases transmitted from animals to people) and diseases involving free-ranging wildlife, as well as science and risk communication.

When she is not at work you might see Chelsea mucking around on her Abbotsford farm with a collection of incredibly adorable Icelandic ponies. However, it is more likely that she will be fulfilling her most important role, which is being a personal assistant to two demanding (but also very adorable) bosses.

Cait Nelson is a Wildlife Health Biologist with the BC Wildlife Health Program, based in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. She joined the BC Wildlife Health Program in 2006 and now leads priority disease surveillance programs such as Chronic Wasting Disease and Bovine Tuberculosis. Cait is dedicated to working with researchers, agencies, stakeholders, First Nations and the general public to ensure that these groups have access to current and accurate facts on priority wildlife health issues.

Kazal Krishna Ghosh, DVM, MS, MSc, Dipl. ACVM (Bacteriology & Mycology) is a Veterinary Microbiologist and the Section Head of Bacteriology and Serology at the Animal Health Centre with an interest in antimicrobial resistance and new molecular techniques in diagnostic bacteriology.

Dr. Stephen Raverty is a board-certified veterinary pathologist with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Health Center, Abbotsford, BC. For the last 20 years Stephen has been pursuing diagnostic and research interests in stranded marine mammal health throughout the northeastern Pacific region.  He is an emeritus of the Working Group on Unusual Mortality Events and has been involved with investigations in killer whale pathology, large cetacean stranding events in the Gulf of Alaska, and ice seal losses in the arctic.

Dr. Kaylee Byers is both the Regional Deputy Director for the BC CWHC and a Post Doctoral Fellow in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia where she works on issues at the interface of wildlife and human health.

Beyond her research in wildlife health she is an avid science communicator. Kaylee is the co-founder and co-host of Nerd Nite Vancouver, a monthly seminar series turned podcast (Nerdin’ About). She is also a facilitator for SciCATs, a science communication training program out of Vancouver and co-organizer for ComSciConCan and ComSciConCanWest, which are Science Communication Training Programs for Graduate Students in STEM. 

Rayna Gunvaldsen BSA DVM MSc is the Chief Veterinarian, Animal Welfare and Dairy Program veterinarian with the BC Ministry of Agriculture. Her career began in the swine industry and spanned the primary chain from farm to fork – stockperson, herd veterinarian, and meat inspector, which sparked her interest in regulatory medicine. Dr. Gunvaldsen’s areas of expertise and interest include animal disease control and emergency management.

Tony is an avian pathologist at the Animal Health Centre. He completed his DVM and MVetSc at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon and is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists. His areas of interest include infectious poultry disease, zoonotic diseases and foreign animal disease emergency response.

Dr. Hsiao is a senior scientist in bioinformatics at BC Centre for Disease Control Public Health Laboratory (BCCDCPHL) and has academic appointments at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He directs the Public Health Bioinformatics Group at BCCDCPHL, an interdisciplinary group of researchers interested in solving practical public health problems through a One Health lens. The team combines knowledge engineering techniques and bioinformatics tool development to improve data sharing and integrated analysis in public health.

Will’s team developed several ontologies used to consistently describe public health knowledge and data. Will is a co-lead of the IRIDA Consortium, a group of bioinformatics researchers building a high-quality, user-friendly genomic epidemiology analysis platform. His team also develops several workflows to automate pathogen genomic data analysis. Recognizing the One Health nature of many infectious diseases, Will’s team collaborates extensively with researchers and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines in quantitative sciences, social sciences and medical and veterinary sciences with the aim to understand the microbial world better. 

Michael is a PhD candidate in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. After exploring the impacts of traditional pest control on rat-borne zoonotic pathogens and finding that they have the potential to paradoxically increase the very disease risks they are seeking to mitigate, he refocused his research onto investigating the approaches that city’s take to managing rats. Michael’s work is designed to bridge the gap between basic science and actual action by understanding current approaches to large-scale urban control and to map out why, after centuries of effort, city’s still struggle to effectively manage their rat populations. This research is designed in close conjunction with municipal partners across the continent to develop actionable frameworks and policies that municipalities can actually use for the development of novel approaches to large-scale management.

When he is not playing at being a rataholic, Michael heads out searching for the gnarliest pits and the heaviest barrels that the year-round bathtub-warm waters of Canada’s Pacific coast have to offer. 

Michelle completed her BSc in Ecology at the University of Calgary in 2005 and her DVM at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine through the University of Saskatchewan in 2011. She is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Her project focuses on the utility of environmental sampling for the surveillance of avian influenza in wild waterfowl. Michelle's research interests include zoonotic diseases, epidemiology, disease surveillance, One Health, and data science.

Amy Wilson is a veterinarian and ecologist. She completed her MSc and PhD at the University of British Columbia and her DVM at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine. Her research interests are in wildlife disease and conservation ecology.

Lauren is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia and the BC Centre for Disease Control where her research focuses on avian influenza surveillance in the environment and One Health influenza initiatives. She completed her PhD at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre where she researched the genetics of healthy aging and longevity in Super-Seniors.