Kelly Swanson
Dr. Kelly Swanson is the Kraft Heinz Company Endowed Professor in Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His laboratory studies the effects of nutritional intervention on health outcomes, identifying how nutrients impact host physiology and gut microbiota, with primary emphasis on gastrointestinal health and obesity in dogs, cats, humans, and rodent models. Much of his lab’s work has focused on dietary fibers, prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, and postbiotics. Over the past 15 years, he has established an internationally recognized research program, highlighted by over $21 million in research support, 150 invited lectures at scientific and professional meetings, 220 peer-reviewed journal articles, and 15 research and teaching awards. He has trained over 40 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows (and has 12 in his lab now), hosted 15 international visiting scholars, and mentored over 35 undergraduate research projects. In addition to research, Dr. Swanson teaches 3-4 nutrition courses each year to undergraduate and graduate students and has been named to the university’s ‘List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students’ 29 times. He also serves on advisory boards for many companies in the human and pet food industries as well as non-profit organizations, including the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) and the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP).
Natalia Wagemans
Dr. Natalia Wagemans is the Global Head of the Purina Institute with Head Quarter in St Louis, USA.
Dr. Natalia Wagemans graduated in pediatrics with postgraduate certification in Neonatology. Her academic carrier was related to the pediatric healthcare and nutrition in the State Medical University in Russia. PhD scientific research was performed in the field of iodine deficiency and cardiovascular system in children. She had over 100 scientific presentation at the different medical & scientific forums and over 40 publication in peer reviewed journals. She joined Nestlé in 2002 working in different areas of infant nutrition in Russia & CIS, India, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, Switzerland. From 2014 she was appointed as the Global Head of the Nestle Nutrition Institute (NNI) in Switzerland. Under her leadership, Institute became a one of the credible educational platforms in area of nutrition with a global on-line membership of 500’000 health professional from 191 countries.
Since 2020, Dr Wagemans leads the Purina Institute, which is the global organization that dedicated to sharing the latest nutrition knowledge and break through research with veterinary healthcare professionals worldwide to help pets live longer and better lives.
Jan S. Suchodolski
Dr. Jan S. Suchodolski graduated with a veterinary degree from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria. After working for several years in a small animal specialty clinic he returned to academia and received his PhD in Veterinary Microbiology from Texas A&M University for his work on molecular markers for the assessment of the intestinal microbiota. He is board-certified in immunology by the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists (ACVM). He currently serves as Professor and Associate Director of the GI Lab. He has published more than 340 peer-review manuscripts in the field of veterinary gastroenterology and microbiome.
Linda Toresson
Dr. Linda Toresson graduated from the Swedish University of Agricultural Science in 1995. Since 1996, she has worked at Evidensia Specialist Animal Hospital, Helsingborg, Sweden, focusing on small animal gastroenterology. In 2001, she became a Swedish Specialist in diseases of dogs and cats and in 2007 a Swedish Specialist in Small Animal Internal Medicine. Dr. Toresson served as the Medical Director at Evidensia Specialist Animal Hospital, Helsingborg during 2007-2013, a position she left to become an external PhD-student in gastroenterology at Helsinki University. In 2018, she presented her thesis on oral cobalamin supplementation in dogs with chronic enteropathies and was awarded a PhD with distinction.
Her case load consists exclusively of dogs and cats with gastrointestinal diseases. She is combining clinical practice at the Evidensia Specialist Animal Hospital in Helsingborg with GI research, and is still affiliated with Helsinki University as an external researcher. For more than a decade, she has collaborated in various projects with professors Joerg Steiner and Jan Suchodolski at the Gastrointestinal Laboratory, Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Her main research interest is the intestinal microbiome, including modulation of the microbiome beyond antibiotics.
She currently serves as the president of the European Society of Comparative Gastroenterology.
Helene Stübing
Dr. Helene Stübing graduated with a veterinary medicine degree at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany in March 2020. She began her doctoral degree and fellowship in veterinary gastroenterology under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Unterer, Dr. Kathrin Busch-Hahn and Dr. Jan Suchodolski in June 2020. Dr. Stübing is currently a research assistant in the field of internal medicine and involved in canine and feline clinical practice.
Jamie Hui
Dr. Jamie Hui was born & raised in Sydney, Australia. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2015. After graduation, she spent a year in general practice followed by a rotating small animal and medicine internship. Dr. Hui then traveled to the U.S. deep south to pursue a medicine residency at Louisiana State University. Her interests are gastroenterology, hepatology and immune-mediated diseases.
Julia Fritz
Dr. Julia Fritz graduated from the Veterinary Faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich/Germany in 2003. Afterwards she completed her doctoral theses about digestive physiology in herbivores at the institute of animal nutrition and dietetics, followed by an internship and residency in comparative animal nutrition. After several years in academia, she has now been running a nutrition consultation service for cats and dogs near Munich for more than 10 years. Besides daily questions on the proper nutrition, she focuses on the dietary management of various health issues and diseases, with gastrointestinal disorders being one of the hot topics.
Jenessa A. Winston
Dr. Jenessa Winston is an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University. She received a Bachelor of Science in Integrated Biology from University of Florida in 2007. She then received her veterinary degree from the North Carolina State University in 2011. She went on to complete a rotating small animal internship and residency training in small animal internal medicine at NC State achieving board certification, as a diplomate in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, in 2015. As a Clinical Investigator and NIH T32 fellow at NC State, Dr. Winston completed a PhD in Comparative Biomedical Sciences with an Infectious Disease concentration in 2019. Her dissertation focused on defining the dynamics between the gut microbiota, microbial derived secondary bile acid ursodeoxycholic acid, and Clostridioides difficile pathogenesis.
As a clinician scientist, Dr. Winston’s primary research areas of interest include microbe-host interactions during health and disease and rational manipulation of microbial ecosystems including interventions such as fecal microbiota transplantation. Since starting at OSU, Dr. Winston has launched the Companion Animal Fecal Bank, which currently has two obesity fecal microbiota transplant projects. The first is the canine SLIM study which is an ACK funded clinical trials evaluating the use of fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) as an adjunctive therapy for canine obesity and recently the feline SLIM study funded by the Morris Animal Foundation has launched. Dr. Winston is also a founding member of the Companion Animal Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Consortium.
Fabio Procoli
Dr. Fabio Procoli graduated from the University of Bari, Italy in 2003. He worked in small animal general practice in Italy and UK for 5 years. In 2009, he completed a rotating internship at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Sciences in Edinburgh (Scotland). In 2012, he completed a 3-year residency program in small animal internal medicine at the Royal Veterinary College in London (England). In 2013 and 2014, he was awarded the title of board-certified specialist in small animal internal medicine both by the ACVIM and ECVIM. He completed a 1-year research Mmasters degree at the Royal Veterinary College in London in 2014 on the genetics of chronic enteropathy in German Shepherd dogs. From 2014 to 2017 he served as Deputy Head of Internal Medicine at Anderson Moores Veterinary Specialists in Winchester (UK). He is the Head of Internal Medicine at Ospedale Veterinario Portoni Rossi Anicura in Bologna (Italy) since 2017.
Dr. Procoli has authored and co-authored publications in national and international peer-reviewed journals on the topics of small animal gastroenterology. He is author of the Feline Gastroenterology textbook published by Edra (2021 Ed). He has widely spoken and lectured at national and international continuing education events and courses on all topics of small animal gastroenterology and internal medicine. He is Vice-President of the Italian Small Animal Internal Medicine Society, member of the Comparative Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and a board member of the Companion Animal Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Consortium.
Andrea Reisinger
Dr. Andrea Reisinger graduated with a veterinary medicine degree at the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, Germany in March 2020. She began her doctoral degree and fellowship in veterinary gastroenterology under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Unterer and Dr. Kathrin Busch in June 2020. She is currently a research assistant in the field of internal medicine and involved in canine and feline clinical practice.
Karin Allenspach
Karin Allenspach received her veterinary degree from the University of Zurich. She did an internship in small animal emergency medicine and critical care at Tufts University and a residency in small animal internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. She was awarded a PhD in veterinary immunology from the University of Bern, Switzerland for her work on canine chronic enteropathies. She is currently employed as Professor in Internal Medicine and Translational Health at Iowa State University, Ames, USA and is a PI of the SMART Translational medicine Lab at ISU, which focuses on the development and culture of adult stem stem-cell-derived organoids from various species. Her latest efforts have resulted in the founding of a start-up company (3D Health Solutions, Inc.) with the goal of commercializing assays for drug screening based on organoid methods.
Valerie Parker
Dr. Parker is currently a Professor–Clinical at The Ohio State University. She received her DVM from Tufts University, followed by a small animal internship at the Animal Medical Center in New York City. She then completed a small animal internal medicine residency at Iowa State University and a nutrition residency at Tufts University. She is a diplomate of both the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and the American College of Veterinary Nutrition. Dr. Parker’s primary areas of interest include kidney disease, gastrointestinal disease, and vitamin D metabolism, as well as nutritional management of a variety of canine and feline diseases.
Cecilia Villaverde Haro
She obtained her veterinary degree in 2000 and her PhD in animal nutrition in 2005 by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain. She worked as a post doctoral researcher in feline nutrition at the University of California Davis, where she also completed a residency in small animal clinical nutrition at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. She is board certified in veterinary nutrition by the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN®) and by the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrion (ECVCN) since 2010 and is currently the past president of ECVCN. After working as the chief of service of the veterinary teaching hospital nutrition service in Barcelona (UAB) for 6 years, she is now a consultant in clinical nutrition for Expert Pet Nutrition (www.expertpetnutrition.com) and Veterinary Information Network (VIN). She is the co-chair of the WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee and has written several articles and book chapters on the topic of companion animal nutrition.
