School of Veterinary Medicine

Supporting agriculture and a safe food supply

Essential workers in the School of Veterinary Medicine are caring for livestock, keeping track of disease, ensuring product consistency, and communicating with farmers to ensure that farms can continue providing a reliable food supply for the community.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Health care education in a virtual world

For future health care providers, moving education online has proved especially challenging. With ingenuity and creativity, faculty are helping them continue gaining the skills they’ll need.

Katherine Unger Baillie

‘Disease knows no borders’

From the history of science to medical anthropology, governance, and economics, Penn experts look at the history of global health from different perspectives to see what the future may hold.

Kristina García

Penn labs get creative to stay productive, connected

In the face of a pandemic that has shuttered most physical laboratories across campus, researchers have shifted gears, maintaining work and social ties through grant- and manuscript-writing, virtual journal clubs, online coffee breaks, and more.

Michele W. Berger

New feathered dinosaur was one of the last surviving raptors

Dineobellator notohesperus lived 67 million years ago. Steven Jasinski, who recently earned his doctorate from the School of Arts and Sciences working with Peter Dodson, also of the School of Veterinary Medicine, led the effort to describe the find.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Providing care from a distance

Telemedicine is a critical tool in the COVID-19 epidemic. Clinicians at the medical, dental, and veterinary schools are making use of virtual encounters to keep providing patients with safe, timely, quality care.

Katherine Unger Baillie



In the News


The Washington Post

Dogs may be able to communicate by pressing buttons, research suggests

Postdoc Amritha Mallikarjun of the School of Veterinary Medicine says that dogs use buttons as a trained behavior to try and get the things they want.

FULL STORY →



Popular Science

Dogs really are communicating via button boards, new research suggests

Postdoc Amritha Mallikarjun of the School of Veterinary Medicine says that dogs are using button boards to communicate non-randomly and with intent, although they don’t necessarily have formal language ability.

FULL STORY →



WHYY (Philadelphia)

Saving Philly’s bats, one DIY condo at a time

The Wildlife Futures Program at the School of Veterinary Medicine has facilitated the design and construction of wooden bat boxes to be installed in campus parks, with remarks from Julie Ellis. The project is the brainchild of Penn undergraduate Nick Tanner.

FULL STORY →



Voice of America

Can honeybees and dogs detect cancer earlier than technology?

Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues at the Penn Vet Working Dog Center are training dogs to recognize certain cancer odors.

FULL STORY →



The Scientist

Dogs engage in scent-sational science to sniff out staphylococcus bacteria

Meghan Ramos and Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine and colleagues are training dogs to detect infections that accumulate on orthopedic implants after surgery.

FULL STORY →