Outstanding Alumna Award 2012: Jonna Mazet '90 D.V.M./M.P.V.M. ’92, PH.D. ’96

Jonna Mazet is one of the nation’s leaders in the field of wildlife health teaching, research and service. During her first year of veterinary school at UC Davis, she began research on psoroptic mange in bighorn sheep. She developed a serologic assay that eventually revealed the widespread nature and complexity of the disease. Later, she conducted her dissertation research on mink as an experimental model for the effects of acute and chronic exposure to oil in sea otters. Her research remains the definitive work in the field. After graduation, she was hired by the California Department of Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response to accomplish the task of bringing together oil industry, academic, government and wildlife care groups to build the Oiled Wildlife Care Network.

Mazet is now the co-director of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine Wildlife Health Center. Since her appoint- ment in 1998, she has worked to transform the Wildlife Health Center from a concept into a reality. Under her leadership, the center administers several core programs and has established grant programs to help researchers and students. She also is a member of the UC Global Health Institute and is the School of Veterinary Medicine’s executive director of the One Health Institute, which leads educational and disease response and surveillance programs in 20 countries, recognizing that the health of animals, people and the environment are all connected. Mazet is also a professor of wildlife epidemiology in the Department of Medicine and Epidemiology and is committed to training future veterinarians, epidemiologists and wildlife biologists.