Surveillance program of Minnesota Wildlife for avian influenza virus, including highly pathogenic avian influenza virus team

Dr Schroeder is a Full Professor in the Veterinary Population Medicine Department in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. He has over 20 years of research experience as a molecular biologist in the areas of virology, biodiversity, pathology and genomics. His research program is focused on pathogen discovery; comparing and contrasting a diverse array of host-virus systems. In this project, his lab will perform HPAI isolation in the secure BSL-3 Veterinary Isolation Facility at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Minnesota for any samples that tested positive after RT-PCR screening.

Dr. Arno Wuenschmann has a DVM degree and doctoral thesis from the College of Veterinary Medicine at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. He became board certified in Veterinary Pathology by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists in 1999. He has worked as a diagnostic pathologist at the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory/Department of Population Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota since the year 2000 specializing in wildlife (and exotic animal) pathology. Although he is a diagnostic pathologist with experience in a broad range of domestic species and their diseases, his primary focus is on infectious and toxic diseases of wildlife as evidenced by his numerous publications on the topic of wildlife diseases  that include publications addressing the current outbreak of highly pathogenic influenza in Minnesota wildlife.

Dr. Tiffany Wolf is an associate professor Ecosystem Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota (UMN). Dr Wolf is a wildlife epidemiologist and veterinarian who works closely with natural resource managers and community partners to understand wildlife disease patterns with the goal of developing science-based strategies that mitigate their impacts on both wildlife populations and the people that depend on them. In much of her research, Dr Wolf partners with Tribal Nations and other Indigenous communities in addressing their research priorities on issues such as zoonotic disease emergence and chronic wasting disease (CWD). Prior to becoming UMN faculty, she was an associate veterinarian of the Minnesota Zoo for 10 years. Dr Wolf received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Louisiana State University in 2002 and her PhD from UMN in 2015.

Dr. Kristin Bondo is a researcher in the Veterinary Population Medicine Department at the University of Minnesota. She has a Ph.D. in wildlife diseases from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, a M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and a B.S. in wildlife biology from Purdue University, Indiana. Her previous research experience includes epidemiology of wildlife diseases in various mammal and bird species in the United States and Canada, wildlife disease surveillance and outbreak response in endangered and threatened species, ecology of bats and birds, and Bayesian hierarchical spatial modeling of vectors of West Nile virus and chronic wasting disease occurrence in white-tailed deer in relation to habitat and environmental variables.

Dr. Michelle Schultze is a Public Health Veterinary Preventive Medicine Resident at the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety. She received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Iowa State University in 2016 and her MPH from University of Minnesota in 2022. Her previous work has involved a case-control epidemiological study of Chronic Wasting Disease in farmed cervid herds, developing a Biosecurity Assessment for cervid producers, survey analysis of a biosecurity questionnaire from MN cervid producers, and spatial analysis of risk factors associated with CWD positive status in farmed cervid herds.

Dr. Valeriia Yustyniuk is a Veterinary Public Health Resident and Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Animal Health and Food Safety. Trained as a veterinarian in Ukraine, where she also earned a PhD in Parasitology, her work centers on the intersection of animal and human health, with a focus on understanding the drivers, transmission, and control of infectious diseases within a One Health framework. Dr. Yustyniuk has contributed to projects on chronic wasting disease biosecurity, avian influenza surveillance, antimicrobial resistance in veterinary clinical settings, and global transboundary disease monitoring. Her work bridges field research, policy development, and public health education to support more resilient and integrated health systems.