Veterinary Medicine Extension / School of Veterinary Medicine

Professors in CE in Vet Med

UC ANR has over 150 Professors in Cooperative Extension (CE) located at UC Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Riverside. The Professors in CE focus on applied research and extension in several areas including animal agriculture, environment and natural resource management and 4-H youth programs.

The list below provides information on Professors in CE who are faculty members within the school of veterinary medicine.

Roselle (Rosie) Busch

DVM

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension

Sheep & Goat Herd Health & Production

Office: 4011 Vet Med 3B

Email: rcbusch@ucdavis.edu

Faculty webpage

Dr. Roselle (Rosie) Busch's research and extension focuses on Sheep & Goat Herd Health and Production. Dr. Busch received her BS in Animal Science and her DVM from the University of California, Davis. She then became an Associate Veterinarian at the Ausaymas Veterinary Service in San Benito County. Dr. Busch completed her residency in Large Animal Internal Medicine at the University of California Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at UC Davis and continued on as a Staff Veterinarian. Dr. Busch was a Veterinarian Specialist at the California Department of Food & Agriculture in the Antimicrobial Use & Stewardship program. Through relationship building within various small ruminant industries she hopes to elucidate which aspects of management systems optimize animal health while encouraging production efficiency and long-term resilience.

Lais Costa

DVM, PhD

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension
Rural Community Disaster Preparedness
Office: 4219 Vet Med 3B
Phone: (530) 754-1467
Email: lrcosta@ucdavis.edu

Dr. Costa's research is focused on animal health and welfare, safety, and preparedness. Her interests include working with communities to increase resilience, improve preparation, and build capacity during emergencies like wildfires, floods, and earthquakes through regionally specialized trainings and education programs.

Front-facing portrait of Olukayode Jegede

Olukayode O. Jegede

PhD

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension
Agricultural Toxicity
Office: 2223 Vet Med 3B
Phone: (530) 752-1086
Email: ojegede@ucdavis.edu

Dr. Jegede's research and outreach is focused on toxicology within the agriculture industry. This includes assessing and protecting human, animal, and environmental health.

Gaby Maier

DVM, MPVM, DACVPM, PhD

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension
Beef Cattle Herd Health & Production
Office: 4203 Vet Med 3B
Phone: (530) 754 0886
Email: gumaier@ucdavis.edu

Faculty Webpage UC ANR Beef Cattle Website Twitter:@GabyMaier6

Dr. Gaby Maier’s research and extension focus is on addressing the challenges for California’s beef cattle industry. Her interests are in infectious disease epidemiology and defining best practices for judicious use of antimicrobials and anthelmintics, mitigating the difficulties of adequate mineral supplementation, and the development of herd health programs tailored to the needs of California beef cattle herds.

Emmanuel Okello

BVM, MS, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension
Antimicrobial Stewardship
Office: 18830 Road 112, Tulare

Phone: (559) 556 4261
Email: eokello@ucdavis.edu
Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Website: https://ucanr.edu/sites/ASP/

Faculty Webpage Twitter: @EmmanOkello

Pramod Pandey

PhD

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension
Microbiological Waste

Office: 4021 Vet Med 3B

Phone: 530-752-0615 (office), 530-219-6286 (work cell)
Email: pkpandey@ucdavis.edu

Faculty webpage www.pramodpandey.com

Dr. Pramod Pandey’s research and extension focus is multidisciplinary with respect to the environment, and waste treatment engineering systems Specific areas of research include developing improved methods for on-farm poultry carcass disposal in order to mitigate the presence of pathogenic organisms such as Salmonella and E. coli. In addition, Dr. Pandey is working in the watersheds associated with Yosemite National Park in order to understand the variability of pathogens such as E. coli in the water column and bed sediment of recreational streams.

Luis Peña-Lévano

DVM, PhD

Assistant Professor in Cooperative Extension
Dairy Cattle Production, Health & Management Economics
Email: lpenalevano@ucdavis.edu

Dr. Peña-Lévano's research is focused on dairy economics, financial management, agribusiness, mathematical optimization, and agricultural and environmental policy.

Alda Pires

DVM, MPVM, PhD, DACVPM

Associate Professor in Cooperative Extension

Urban Agriculture & Food Safety Specialist
Email: apires@ucdavis.edu

Faculty webpage UC ANR Small Farms and Urban Agriculture Website

Dr. Pires’ research and extension focus is focused on food safety issues unique to small-scale farms including integrated farms that grow livestock/poultry and crops on the same land. With respect to food safety, science based best practices are poorly understood. Dr. Peres’s research and outreach work focuses on characterizing the unique features of these systems and identifying mitigation strategies to reduce food safety risks in both food animals and crops. Current areas of research include microbial monitoring of various pathogenic organisms including Salmonella, E. coli and Campylobacter in produce and livestock species. Understanding the prevalence and survivability of these food-borne pathogens on these mixed-crop livestock farms is integral toward ensuring the production of safe agricultural products (animal products and produce) from the growing number of California’s small farms, protecting the public’s health, and educating local communities on the varied safety issues surrounding their food supply.

Maurice Pitesky

Assistant Director, DVM, MPVM, DACVPM
Poultry Health and Food Safety Epidemiology

Office: 4007 Vet Med 3B
Phone: (530) 219-1407 (cell), (530) 752-3215 (office)

Email: mepitesky@ucdavis.edu

Faculty Webpage UC ANR Poultry Website Pitesky on ResearchGate

Maurice Pitesky's research and extension focus is on poultry health and food safety epidemiology. Specifically, Dr. Pitesky’s research and extension focus are focused in three major areas: 1) Using “traditional” epidemiological techniques and GIS and spatial statistics to understand how avian diseases move in time and space. 2) Using novel statistical and epidemiological approaches to identify food safety risks from farm to fork. 3) Gaining a better understanding of non-conventional commercial poultry production with respect to environmental sustainability, poultry health, and food safety. Among other projects, Dr. Pitesky is currently working on a 3-year project focused on using “next generation radar”, Landsat satellite imaging, and resource selection models to better understand wild waterfowl movements in the Central Valley of California in order to better inform the California poultry industry about the risk of avian influenza.

Noelia Silva-del-Rio

LV, PhD
Email: nsilvadelrio@vmtrc.ucdavis.edu

ANR faculty webpage Dairy Herd Health, Production Medicine and Food Safety

Dr. Noelia Silva del Rio’s research and extension focus is on dairy production and food safety. Within this topic area current research includes treatment and management solutions for subclinical hypocalcemia such as dietary cation-anion diets and oral Calcium supplementation in post-partum cows. In addition, Dr. Silva-del-Rio is working with the California dairy industry to better identify how dairies evaluate sick cows in order to optimize judicious use of antibiotics.