Board of Directors
The Board of Trustees and Executive Director of the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW) represent a wide spectrum of interests and professional disciplines in biomedical research, agricultural science, wildlife research and ethics. Brief biographical sketches of these individuals follow:
Officers
Randall J. Nelson, PhD
President
University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Randall J. Nelson,PhD is currently Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). He received a BS in Psychology from Duke University in 1975 and completed his doctoral degree in Anatomy from Vanderbilt University in 1979. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco, he was a Staff Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, first in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology, and finally in the Laboratory of Neuropsychology, both at NIMH. He came to UTHSC in 1984 and since then has conducted research into the control of hand movement and taught Human Gross Anatomy. He has served as a member of several NIH study sections. Dr. Nelson has been a council member of the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR). He is an ad hoc consultant for the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, International (AAALAC). He was a member of the UTHSC Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) for twelve years and its chair for three. He is a Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Developer, serving on the Animal Users Group and on the Executive Advisory Committee. He is the Human Protections Administrator and the Director of the Office of Research Compliance at UTHSC. He has been named a National Associate of the National Research Council (NRC) for his pro bono publico work on NRC’s behalf. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of SCAW and currently serves as its President.
Paul G. Braunschweiger, PhD
Vice President
CITI
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Paul G. Braunschweiger, PhD, Professor of Radiation Oncology, Miller Medical School at the University of Miami, Miami, Florida. Dr. Braunschweiger received his Ph.D. from the SUNY at Buffalo. After research positions in Pittsburgh at Allegheny General Hospital and in Denver at the AMC Cancer Center, Dr. Braunschweiger moved to the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Miami in 1990. He has authored numerous peer reviewed papers on experimental cancer therapeutics and cellular radiation sensitivity. He teaches radiation biology and research ethics and is a member of the UM Ethics Programs faculty. His current research interests include Mentoring models and human research participation motivations. Dr. Braunschweiger has been a member of the University of Miami Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee since 1991, the Chair of the IACUC for more than 13 years and director of the Office of the IACUC since 1998. Dr. Braunschweiger developed one of the first web based lab animal welfare training programs in the nation at UM in 1996 and together with Karen Hansen at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, started the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Program in 2000. In 2006, Dr. Braunschweiger and Dr Mike Fallon at the Atlanta VA extended their 3 year collaboration by adapting the VA’s basic animal welfare training program to the CITI presentation paradigm. In 2010, more than 30,000 people completed approximately 65,000 lab animal care and use courses on the CITI platform. The CITI Lab Animal Care and Use development team is headed by Dr. Michael Mann, formally the Chair of the IACUC at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The CITI Program, directed by Dr. Braunschweiger and hosted by University of Miami IT, now provides a multi-language, customizable, web based, research ethics education experience to learners at more than 1530 organizations around the world. Dr. Braunschweiger has served as a study section reviewer for the NIH and is currently funded by the Department of the Navy, the Department of Energy the ORI/DHHS and by the NIH/Fogarty International Center for various research ethics education projects in the US and in Latin America.
A. Wallace Hayes, PhD, DABT, FATS, FIBiol, FACFE
Secretary
Harvard School of Public Health
A. Wallace Hayes, PhD, DABT, FATS, FIBiol, FACFE, ERT, Dr. Hayes is a toxicologist with over 30 years of experience. He has written over 200 peer reviewed publications and is the editor of the textbook, Principles and Methods of Toxicology, the international journal of Human and Experimental Toxicology and a co-editor of the Target Organ Toxicity Series. Dr. Hayes also is the editor of Cutaneous and Ocular Toxicology. Before joining Harvard School of Public Health as a visiting scientist, Dr. Hayes was Vice-President of Corporate Product Integrity at the Gillette Company, where he had management responsibility for the safety evaluation of a variety of consumer products, plant safety, environmental stewardship, and quality control. Dr. Hayes is an adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, the University of Louisville School of Medicine and the School of Public Health, the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Hayes holds degrees from Auburn University (PhD and M.S.) and Emory University (A.B.). Dr. Hayes was an NSF predoctoral fellow at Auburn University, a NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and a NATO Senior Scientist at the Central Veterinary Laboratory, Weybridge, England. Dr. Hayes currently lectures at the Harvard School of Public Health and at Virginia Polytechnic and State University and in the Risk Assessment Summer School of the International Union of Toxicology (IUTOX). Dr. Hayes has served the International Union of Toxicology as the editor of the Proceedings of ICT III (Developments in the Science and Practice of Toxicology) and as the editor of the Proceedings of the 5th Congress of Toxicology in Developing Countries (Toxicology in the New Century—Opportunity and Challenge). He has served as a delegate to IUTOX and on several IUTOX commissions. Dr. Hayes currently is the Secretary-General of IUTOX and a member of the council of the American College of Toxicology. Dr. Hayes has served on committees and expert panels for the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institutions of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense. Dr. Hayes is a diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology, The Academy of Toxicological Sciences, the American Board of Forensic Medicine and the American Board of Forensic Examiners. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, the Institute of Biology (UK) and the American College of Forensic Examiners. Dr. Hayes is a registered toxicologist in the European Union (ERT) and a certified nutrition specialist.
Gregory R. Reinhard, DVM, MBA, Dipl ACLAM
Treasurer
Merck & Company
Gregory R. Reinhard, DVM, MBA, Dipl ACLAM, is the Executive Director for Global Research Safety and Compliance at Merck & Co., Inc. He received a B.S. in Animal Science from Cook College of Rutgers University, a MBA in pharmaceutical/chemical studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a D.V.M. from the School of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University. He is a diplomat of American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. At The Rockefeller University he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in laboratory animal medicine and pathology and later became Assistant Director of Laboratory Animal Research Center. Previously he served as the director of Comparative Medicine at Schering-Plough Research Institute, in Kenilworth, NJ.
Ernest D. Prentice, PhD
Past President
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Ernest D. Prentice, PhD, is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the Institutional Official for the Animal Care and Use Program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. In addition to his scholarly work in the fields of anatomy and medical education, Dr. Prentice is a frequent contributor to the literature on the ethics and regulation of both human and animal research, and he is a frequent speaker at meetings on various aspects of research ethics. He regularly serves as a faculty member for PRIM&R IRB 101/250 courses and IACUC 101/201 courses, which are held at universities across the U.S.
Dr. Prentice is President of the Board of Trustees for the Scientist Center for Animal Welfare and Chair of the CITI Executive Advisory Committee. In 2003, Dr. Prentice was awarded the Harry C. Roswell Award for his contributions to the enhancement of laboratory animal welfare, and in 2005, Dr. Prentice received the Applied Research Ethics National Association (ARENA) Distinguished Service Award. In 2006, the HHS Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) presented Dr. Prentice with a medallion for Outstanding Achievement in Human Subject Protections.
Board of Trustees
Chris R. Abee, DVM, MS, DACLAM
Doctor R. Lee Clark Proffessor and Chair Department of Veternary Sciences
Director of Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Chris R. Abee, DVM, MS, DACLAM, is the Doctor R. Lee Clark Professor of Comparative Medicine and Chair Department of Veterinary Sciences and the Director of Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at Bastrop TX. He received his B.S. in Veterinary Science and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees from Texas A&M University and his M.S. in Comparative Medicine at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. He directs several national research resources of nonhuman primates that are supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health. His interests include studies of the biology of Neotropical primates and research leading to the development of nonhuman primate models to address human health issues.
B. Taylor Bennett, DVM, PhD, DACLAM
Consultant
B. Taylor Bennett, DVM, PhD, DACLAM, did his undergraduate work at Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee. He obtained his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Auburn University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Medical School. He is currently is a management consultant in the area of program evaluation and regulatory compliance and serves as the Senior Scientific Advisor for the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR). He spent 36 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) overseeing their animal care and use program. The last ten of those years he served as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Resources.
Dr. Bennett has served as the President of the Association of Primate Veterinarians, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science and the American Society of Laboratory Animal Practitioners. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Biomedical Research, which he chaired, and the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. He has also served as ASLAP Delegate and Alternate Delegate to the AVMA House of Delegates and on both the 1993 and 2000 AVMA Panel on Euthanasia. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of the ASLAP Foundation.
He has served as the senior author of the Essentials for Animal Research: A Primer for Research Personnel which was published by the National Agricultural Library. He also served as the program director for an ACLAM approved postdoctoral training program in laboratory animal medicine and as the senior editor for the two volume ACLAM text, Non Human Primates in Biomedical Research and an author of the CRC manual The Laboratory Non-human Primate. Dr. Bennett has over 50 publications and over 220 abstracts and presentations.
He has been the recipient of the Robert J. Flynn Award, CB-AALAS Distinguished Service Award, the AVMA’s Charles River Prize, the Illinois School of Veterinary Medicine's Special Service Award, the AALAS Joseph A Garvey Award and the Foundation for Biomedical Research’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Joseph T. Bielitzki, MS, DVM
Consultant
Joseph T. Bielitzki, DVM, MS serves part time in the Office of Research at the University of Central Florida in Orlando interacting with the both the Institutional Review Board and the IACUC. Dr. Bielitzki most recently served as a the Associate Director of the NanoScience Technology Center at UCF but stepped down to accept a position in industry. Prior to his time at UCF he served as a Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia and prior to that, as Chief Veterinary Officer at NASA. In addition, Joe has worked in academia, industry and private practice. Dr. Bielitzki¹s interests include developing novel research approaches to biomedical problems., the ethical care and use of animals in biomedical research, and primate medicine. He has served on numerous IACUCs during his career and speaks frequently on ethical issues and animal use. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare and the National Animal Interest Alliance. He remains active in the Association of Primate Veterinarians, the American Society of Primatologists, and AALAS.
Anthony G. Comuzzie, PhD
Texas Biomedical Research Institute
Southwest National Primate Research Center
Anthony G. Comuzzie, PhD, has more than two decades of research experience focused on the genetics of complex diseases with a particular emphasis on obesity, diabetes, and heart disease with much of this work utilizing nonhuman primate models. Dr. Comuzzie has been an IACUC member for over a decade and has served as the chair of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute’s (formerly the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research) animal care and use committee for the past five years. He is active in a number of scientific societies including the Obesity Society where he has also served on the executive council. In addition, Dr. Comuzzie is the Editor of Frontiers in Applied Genetic Epidemiology, an Associate Editor of BMC Medical Genetics, and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics. Dr. Comuzzie received his Bachelors of Science degree in Biology in 1981 and a Masters of Arts degree in Anthropology in 1987 from Texas A&M University and his Doctorate of Philosophy in Biological Anthropology in 1992 from the University of Kansas.
W. Ron DeHaven, DVM, MBA
CEO
American Veterinary Medical Association
is CEO of the American Veterinary Medical Association, representing more than 81,500 veterinarians across the US. He has more than two decades of experience with the U.S Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and gained national prominence in 2003 and 2004 when bovine spongiform encephalopathy and avian influenza were making headlines. Dr. DeHaven received the President’s Rank Awards (Meritorious and Distinguished) for his leadership. He also received the USDA Secretary's Honor Award twice. The AVMA honored Dr. DeHaven’s contributions to the veterinary profession with the Meritorious Service Award in 2004. He also received the Roswell Award from the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare, and an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from Purdue University.
Joseph P. Garner, PhD
Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine
Standford University
Joseph P. Garner, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Medicine at Stanford University, and previously an Associate Professor of animal behavior and well-being in the Animal Sciences department at Purdue University. He received his degree in zoology from Oxford University, UK, and went on to study for his doctorate in the Animal Behaviour Research Group at Oxford, working on the neuropsychology of stereotypies in captive animals in Georgia Mason’s laboratory. He moved to Joy Mench’s laboratory at UC Davis for his postdoctoral research, before taking up his current position in 2004. Dr. Garner has published extensively both in the behavior-and-well-being, and in the psychiatric animal modeling literatures. Dr. Garner’s research interests include the development of refined methods in behavioral research; abnormal behaviors (including barbering and ulcerative dermatitis) and their relationships with abnormal behaviors in humans; mouse well-being; and the scientific impact of well-being problems in laboratory animals. Graduate students working with Dr. Garner have studied barbering as an animal model of trichotillomania, the behavioral neurobiology of ulcerative dermatitis, mouse behavior and enrichment (particularly cold stress and nesting behavior), the design of laying hen caging, and behavioral contributions to early life mortality in turkeys. Dr. Garner serves, or has served, as a council member for the International Society for Applied Ethology, an Editor for Applied Animal Behavior Science, a Special Topics section editor for the Journal of Animal Science, on the AAALAC Board of Trustees, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Trichotillomania Learning Center. Dr. Garner recently won the prestigious UFAW Professor William Russell Research Fellowship for his work in mouse well-being.
Margaret Landi, VMD
GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals
Margaret Landi, VMD, is Vice-President of Global Laboratory Animal Science. She leads 10 laboratory animal science groups; two located in the Philadelphia area, one in North Carolina, four sites in the UK, one in Italy, one in Spain and one in Japan. Dr. Landi holds a bachelor's degree in Biology from William Paterson University of New Jersey, a veterinary degree (V.M.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master's in Comparative from Pennsylvania State University. She is a Diplomate in the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM), and is Past- President of ACLAM. Besides serving as a member and officer of the ACLAM Board of Directors, she has served on the Council of the Institute of Laboratory Animal Research, a part of the National Academy of Science. While on ILAR Council she was Editor-in-Chief of the ILAR Journal. She has served on review committees of the National Institute of Health and has lead special site visit teams for NIH Committees. Dr. Landi is the recipient of the 2002 Charles River Award, and also received the 2002 Distinguished Alumni Award from her undergraduate university. She has published and presented papers on a number of topics related to laboratory animal medicine and science. Margaret also holds academic appointments at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, Hahnemann University, Thomas Jefferson University and at the Milton S. Hershey Medical School which is part of The Pennsylvania State University system.
William J. White, VMD
Charles River
William J. White, V.M.D., M.S., DACLAM, Dip. ECLAM, received his V.M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1970); his Master of Science degree in laboratory animal medicine from The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania (1972); and his Bachelor of Science degree from The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania (1966).
Prior to joining Charles River, Dr. White was a tenured Associate Professor of Comparative Medicine of the College of Medicine at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center where he conducted basic research in a number of areas involving the effects of environmental variables on laboratory animals and laboratory animal anesthesia. In 1988 he joined Charles River as Director of Professional Services subsequently holding a number of positions in the organization, and currently is Corporate Vice President for Veterinary and Professional Services. In this capacity, he oversees the corporation’s world-wide diagnostic and professional services activities as well as its corporate biosecurity program.
Dr. White has served as a consultant to numerous institutions, organizations, government agencies, and countries on the design and operation of animal programs and facilities. While at Charles River he has continued to head corporate research programs in environmental factors influencing animal performance as well as other areas involving the care and use of animals in research and production environments. He heads the global biosecurity program for Charles River and has innovated effective risk reduction processes to reduce/ eliminate microbiological and genetic contamination in rodent production.
He has authored or coauthored 75 peer-reviewed research articles or book chapters. Dr. White has served on the ILAR committee that developed the 1996 Laboratory Animal Management Guide for Rodents and on the ILAR committee that developed the 1996 Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. He also served as a reviewer for the 2010 revision of the Guide. He co-edited the first ACLAM text on anesthesia and analgesia in laboratory animals.
Dr. White is a diplomate of The American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM) and The European College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ECLAM). He is Past President of American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. He is a member of the International Association of Colleges of Laboratory Animal Medicine (IACLAM) in which he holds the office of President.
Dr. White has had an on going interest in the welfare of laboratory animals and in optimizing the environmental conditions under which they are maintained. He also has an ongoing interest and expertise in engineering and physical sciences as they apply to animal care and use in biomedical research. He is a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and serves on the Live Animals and Perishables Board as a member of its Animal Welfare Team. He has played the lead role in the development of the new container standards for laboratory animals as well as in the development of the “Life Science Logistics for Laboratory Animals” chapter in the IATA’s Live Animals Regulations.
Stuart M. Zola, PhD
Yerkes National Primate Research Center
Emory University
Stuart M. Zola, PhD, Concurrent Emory and Veterans Affairs Appointments: Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Co-Director, Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and is a Senior Research Career Scientist, Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Dr. Zola is one of the nation’s leading neuroscientists, Dr. Zola has contributed valuable insights into how the brain organizes memory and how this process relates to memory problems, such as amnesia. He also is regarded as a leader in how to better communicate science and research to the general public. In 2009, the American Association for the Advancement of Science named him a fellow for his “distinguished contributions in neuroscience, including the delineation of the brain's memory system, and for communicating the importance and excitement of science to the lay public.”
As the director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, a position he began in 2001, Dr. Zola oversees essential basic science and translational research to advance scientific understanding and to improve the health and well-being of humans and animals. Within the fields of behavioral neuroscience and psychiatric disorders, developmental and cognitive neuroscience, microbiology and immunology, neurologic disease, neuropharmacology and pathology, the center's research programs are seeking ways to: develop vaccines for infectious and noninfectious diseases, such as AIDS and Alzheimer's disease; treat cocaine addiction; interpret brain activity through imaging; increase understanding of progressive illnesses, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's; unlock the secrets of memory; determine behavioral effects of hormone replacement therapy; address vision disorders; and advance knowledge about the evolutionary links between biology and behavior.
Dr. Zola’s own research focuses on memory formation, consolidation and retrieval. He is perhaps best known for developing an animal model of human amnesia in nonhuman primates that conclusively identified brain structures critical to memory function. Dr. Zola’s research has contributed significant insights into the memory loss in humans that results from head trauma and characterizes progressive diseases, such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s. His research has also provided knowledge about less-severe memory problems that often accompany depression, chronic stress and normal aging. In one of his current research programs, he is studying patients who have MCI as a way to identify those who later may be affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
Joanne Zurlo, PhD
Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing
Joanne Zurlo, PhD, received a Ph.D. in Basic Medical Sciences from New York University in 1979, with a concentration in biochemistry and chemical carcinogenesis. She served on the faculty at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire and at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. She also served as the Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) from 1993 – 2000 and was a member of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. From 2000-2010, she was the Director of the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research at the National Academies in Washington, DC, where she oversaw international activities, publication of the quarterly ILAR Journal, maintenance of the ILAR web site and development of special reports. In 2010, she returned to CAAT as Director of Science Strategy where she is coordinating the transatlantic think tank of toxicology (t4) and the CAAT Refinement Program. Dr. Zurlo has authored over 50 publications in scientific books and journals and is an active member of AAAS, American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, American Association for Cancer Research and the Society of Toxicology (SOT). She also serves on the boards of the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare and the William and Charlotte Parks Foundation.
Ex officio:
LEE KRULISCH
has been Executive Director of the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW) since March 1989. Ms. Krulisch joined SCAW in 1984, serving initially as a Program Coordinator and then Assistant to the Executive Director. She edited Implementation Strategies for Research Animal Well being: Institutional Compliance with Regulations (SCAW, 1992) and coedited six other books: The Care and Use of Amphibians, Reptiles and Fish in Research (SCAW, 1992), The Well being of Agricultural Animals in Biomedical and Agricultural Research (SCAW, 1991), Canine Research Environment (SCAW, 1990) and Well being of Nonhuman Primates in Research (SCAW, 1990), The Human/Research Animal Relationship (1996), and Performance Standards and Animal Welfare: Definition, Application and Assessment, Part I. She also was Managing Editor of Science and Animals: Addressing Contemporary Issues (SCAW, 1989). Ms. Krulisch earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers University and completed sixty hours of graduate work at the University of Rhode Island and the University of Maryland. She served as the nonaffiliated member of the University of Maryland, College Park, Animal Care and Use Committee, and presently serves as the nonaffiliated member on an Animal Care Committee at the National Institute of Mental Health. She serves on the Board of AAALAC International, is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS), American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA), and the Laboratory Animal Management Association (LAMA).
I am delighted to be associated with SCAW as a member of the Board of Trustees. In the years that I been interacting with SCAW, as director of ILAR and in my association with the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animals Testing, the organization has made great strides in conveying the scientific community’s concern about the welfare of their animal research subjects.
Through its publications and conferences, SCAW has succeeded in bringing together multiple constituencies to work toward common goals.
Joanne Zurlo
Director of Science Strategy
The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing