Our board of directors and our members are located all across Canada. The VWB/VSF-Canada head office  is in situated in Victoria, British Columbia and we have regional offices based in Chile and in Singapore.

Our team includes staff at Head Office, a Board of Directors, Liaisons with a variety of organizations, Regional Program Managers, and an Advisory Council. The Advisory Council provides ongoing advice to the Board of Directors on important policy issues.

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Joseph Bata, Financial Services Professional

Brian Bedard, World Bank
Theresa Bernardo, Founder, One Health Knowledge Initiatives; Associate Professor, Epidemiology 

                               and Health Informatics at Michigan State University

Lloyd Dalziel, Chair of ISCA-AIDC

Jeff Davidson, Professor, Department of Health Management ((Aquaculture, Ecohealth, Curriculum, Development) Univeristy of Prince Edward Island

Brian Evans, CFIA

Dorothy Geale, Foreign Animal Diseases, CFIA

Sandra Godden, Professor Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota

Ralph Goldman, NY-based practitioner - international project development expertise

Alden Hadwen, Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility, Groupe Aeroplan

John McDermott, ILRI

Ole Nielsen, retired Dean of OVC and WCVM

Chas Povey, Director Centaur VA and the Veterinary Pharmacy
Kevin Saldahna, Veterinary Practitioner

Alastair Summerlee, University of Guelph

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Hazel Dickie

Hazel Dickie was, for the past 25 years, the Director of Operations for Pfizer Animal Health (Formerly Wyeth Animal Health, Ayerst Veterinary Laboratories, Cyanamid, and Langford). Over the years her position handled multiple responsibilities. Her main focus was the management of product logistics, distribution and purchasing along with building maintenance and the sale of facilities and a research farm. Additional duties had included management of customer service and human resources. She has been President of AMS Grand Valley Chapter, Vice President of the Guelph Humane Society, and Treasurer of the Royal City Lions Club.

Jack Gewarter, DVM

Dr. Jack Gewarter is a veterinarian who has travelled extensively and shared his expertise with communities throughout the world for over 30 years. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Biology/Zoology and a DVM from the University of Guelph and has been a member of Veterinarians without Borders since 2006. His extensive wildlife conservation, pathology and rehabilitation background includes work locally in North America as well as in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. In addition he has worked with sheep in Scotland, camels in the Sinai Desert and dairy goats and cattle in the Middle East and Africa. ‘Dr. Jack’ as his clients refer to him established a companion animal practice in his multicultural neighbourhood in downtown Toronto in 1984 and continues to enjoy his medical, surgical and dental cases as much as his special interest in Veterinary Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. He has a wealth of media and communications experience and is an active fund-raiser for the VWB/VSF rabies program. He is passionate about wild cat conservation and currently divides his time between Canada, Costa Rica and Mexico.

Jim Fairles, DVM

Dr. Jim Fairles is a 1980 graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College and a 1999 graduate of the University of Guelph, MBA. He is semi-retired from private practice at Fairles (previously Harriston - Mount Forest) Veterinary Services in Mount Forest, Ontario where he practiced for 25 years. From April 2002 to December 2003 he gained international experience working with CIDA on a two-year animal health initiative in China and has made several trips back to China since then. Since October 2004, he has been Client Services Veterinarian at the Animal Health Laboratory, Laboratory Services Division, University of Guelph. He is a member of the CVMA, OVMA, Grey Bruce Veterinary Association, Ontario and American Association of Bovine Practitioners and Ontario and American Association of Swine Veterinarians. He has held positions in the CVO, OABP, OASV and AABP. He is currently the CVMA representative to the Canadian Animal Health Coalition and board member and treasurer of Veterinarians without Borders – Veterinaries sans Frontieres Canada. Jim currently lives with his wife Mary Lou in Mount Forest where he indulges in his hobbies of astronomy, airplanes and computers besides trying to keep track of his three children who have “left the nest”.

David Hall, DVM, PhD

David is an associate professor of animal health economics and policy at the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Ecosystem and Public Health. His academic qualifications include a DVM (OVC’89) and PhD in agricultural economics (Texas A&M, 2001). His current research focuses on a number of themes including the impact and quantitative measurement of ecosystem health management, welfare changes from integrated farming in developing countries, the economics of newly emerging infectious diseases, delivery systems for veterinary services, and prion diseases in ruminants. Much of his work is in developing countries including Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Tanzania. Prior to joining UCVM, David spent a combination of eight years working with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations based in Rome and Bangkok, the International Livestock Research Institute based in Nairobi, and on contract with several international institutions including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. In the last year David has been actively involved with VWB/VSF-Canada helping to develop projects and programmes in South and South-East Asia. He has made presentations on behalf of VWB/VSF-Canada and is developing a number of research and applied development proposals that involve VWB/VSF-Canada. He advocates future activities of VWB/VSF-Canada that would involve greater integration with other NGOs and a broader reach of participatory activities involving several professions that address positive welfare change through livestock, companion animals, and wildlife.

Josiane Houle, BSc DVM

 Josiane is a veterinarian who completed an internship in companion animal medicine at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (FVM) at the University of Montreal in 2000 and then has worked for a number of years in emergency veterinary medicine. Having always hoped to eventually merge her veterinary skills with humanitarian issues and issues of global importance, Josiane decided in 2002 to return to school to pursue a degree in international development at McGill. She currently teaches emergency medicine at the University of Montreal. She also works with the Groupe International Vétérinaire (GIV) at FMV and with fellow McGill faculty members and students on international veterinary development projects. She has been a member of VWB/VSF for the past two years and participated in their canine disease and population control meeting in Montreal in March 2008. She has also been involved with VWB/VSF activities at the AVMQ Congress this past spring.

Trace Mackay BA, BSc, DVM

Born, raised and early educated in Ingersoll, Ontario. One of four children of a school principal and a nurse, I was lucky to have access to, and in frequent need of, the structure, discipline and frequent medical attention I required! Walking traplines alongside my grandfather and father, I gained an interest and knowledge of wild animals, birds, habitats and the influence of human populations on these, from a very young age. My first international travel experience was at the age of 17 where I spent a year in South Africa disguised as an exchange student – my host families thought it was far more valuable for me to travel and work in their country, so for the first time in my life school was not a priority! After a few years of pursuing an arts degree at the University of Western Ontario, returning to high school to gain math and science credits I failed to get the first time around, working and living life, I found myself at the University of Guelph studying Biological and Biomedical sciences and focusing on becoming a veterinarian. I wasn’t really sure what a small animal veterinarian did at the time I was accepted as a preveterinary student but five years later, upon graduating in 2003, I decided to hone my skills as an emergency and locum veterinarian for a few years until I felt prepared to pursue graduate studies. Those few years turned into six years, but I am finally returning to OVC in the fall of 2009 to benefit from the new Master in Public Health program where I hope to focus on zoonotic disease and ecosystem health studies. I’m not quite sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I hope it involves a good integration of ecosystem health care within communities in need, whether they be in Canada or elsewhere on our vast planet. I am still not convinced I can’t save the world!

Scarlett Magda BSc, DVM

Having descended from Hungarian immigrant parents, Scarlett’s childhood was filled with multicultural experiences as she was not only exposed to Hungarian traditions but Serbian, Croatian, Indian and many others as her parents made acquaintances with other immigrant doctors in their professional field. This exposure allowed Scarlett to appreciate her roots as well as the rare freedoms, diversity and standard of living Canada has to offer. In 2005, Scarlett received her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Guelph. She subsequently obtained her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the Ontario Veterinary College of the University of Guelph in 2009. In her second year of veterinary studies, Scarlett managed to organize and fund a research project investigating saddle related injuries in working Asian elephants in the Thai tourism industry. This project raised $8000 CDN and won another $5000 US for winning the 2008 Ballard Award from Morris Animal Foundation’s Veterinary Student Scholars North America?wide competition. Sponsors involved included the Chester Zoological Society, University of Guelph, Morris Animal Foundation, and VWB/VSF. In her final year of veterinary studies, Scarlett was determined to work in Africa in a project involving AIDS victims and children. She received travel and financial support from VWB/VSF to take part in a project investigating and training farmers to monitor basic health management issues in goat husbandry and production. While in Uganda, Scarlett visited the United Nations Millennium Villages Project (UNDP) in Ruhiira and started preliminary discussions to establish a partnership with UNDP Uganda and VWB/VSF. A memorandum of understanding is pending. Scarlett is currently living in New York City while completing an internship in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery.

Joanne Owens

Joanne Owens is National Volunteering Coordinator for CUSO-VSO (based in Ottawa). She has 12 years of middle and senior management experience with international volunteer cooperation organizations and over 20 years of education and experience in adult education (rural
extension) and international development. She has developed and implemented strategic partnerships and alliances with a variety of stakeholders and has prepared funding proposals on behalf of the organizations with whom she has worked. Joanne is also a gender champion and has assisted organisations in integrating gender in their structure and their programs. Skilled at selecting and preparing volunteers for overseas placements, she developed the first
partnership agreements between VWB/VSF and WUSC-CECI (Uniterra Program) which placed our first overseas volunteers in Malawi.

Barry Stemshorn, DVM

A graduate of McGill University (BSc), l’Université de Montréal (DMV), and the University of Guelph (PhD), Barry joined the Public Service of Canada in 1974 as a veterinarian with the Animal Diseases Research Institute of Agriculture Canada.
He worked on many research and management projects before being appointed Director of the Animal Diseases Research Institute (1983). He also served as an expert advisor on brucellosis for the UN Food & Agriculture and World Health Organizations and as a consultant to the United Nations University, coordinating a network of laboratories in Latin America. From 1988-90 Barry worked for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). From 1991-95 Barry worked in national policy roles for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. He led work on high profile issues such as the humane transport of livestock, management of diseased bison of Wood Buffalo National Park, and the response to Canada’s first case of Mad Cow Disease. In 1995 Barry moved to Calgary as Regional Director General for the Food Production and Inspection Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). There he participated in the creation of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, leading the integration across Western Canada of operations of the food and agricultural inspection programs of Health Canada, Fisheries & Oceans Canada and AAFC.
In 1999 Barry joined the Privy Council Office where he supported the Prime Minister and his Cabinet as Director of Operations, Economic and Regional Development Policy. There he dealt with difficult aspects of energy, environmental, agricultural and fisheries policies. He moved to Environment Canada in 2000 as Assistant Deputy Minister for the Environmental Protection Service, responsible for all federal legislation to prevent and reduce pollution. He oversaw creation of the Environmental Stewardship Branch in 2005, drawing together all regulatory work on environmental conservation and protection.

Enid Stiles, DVM, (MSc)

Enid is a small animal practitioner working in the West Island of Montréal. She has been Vice President of Veterinarians without Borders/ Vétérinaires sans Frontières?Canada since its inception in 2005, and also serves as the Co?ordinator of its Canine and Feline Programs. Dr Stiles is continuing her academic studies at the University of Montreal, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, by fulfilling a part?time residency and masters program in Clinical Sciences and Behaviour Medicine under the supervision of Dr Diane Frank, DVM, DACVB. Her interest in international work has been evident throughout her studies with the initiation of Global Vets India in 1998 at the Ontario Veterinary College with her classmate Michelle Cutler. Dr Stiles is now combining her interests in global health and veterinary behaviour medicine through the promotion and development of global rabies control and bite prevention programs.

Roger Thomson , DVM

Roger Thomson, DVM was born and raised on a farm in Bruce County. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a BSc degree in 1970. He then completed a fourth year in science at the University of Guelph and went on to graduate from the Ontario Veterinary College in 1975. He worked in a mixed practice in Uxbridge Ontario for two years and in 1977 bought a mixed practice in Kincardine where he remained the sole owner at Kincardine Veterinary Services until 2005. In 1991?92, he completed the first Dairy Health Management Certificate Program at the Ontario Veterinary College. He served as a member of the board of directors of Lifelearn Inc. from the start up of the company in 1995 until 2002. Since 2005 has been employed as Technical Services Veterinarian with Wyeth Animal Health and is responsible for technical support for Bovine and Equine products in Ontario and the Maritimes. Roger has been involved with international development in Tanzania from 1988 to the present through Dr. Uswege Minga, a veterinary colleague and good friend. This work with Dr. Minga has been in partnership with the veterinary school at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, the Open University of Tanzania and now with VWB/VSF?Canada. These projects have involved veterinary journal exchanges, building desks for a primary school, building new classrooms, and the latest project with VWB/VSF has been working to improve poultry health and management in Ilima.

David Waltner-Toews, DVM, PhD

David Waltner-Toews is founding president of Veterinarians without Borders/ Vétérinaires sans Frontières – Canada (www.vwb-vsf.ca) and of the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health (www.nesh.ca). A recently retired Professor of epidemiology (zoonoses and foodborne duseases) at the University of Guelph, he is also a founding member of Communities of Practice for Ecosystem Approaches to Health in Canada (www.copeh-canada.org) and internationally. He has worked on every continent except Antarctica on ecosystem approaches to health. In 2010, in London, England, the International Association for Ecology and Health presented him with the inaugural award for contributions to ecosystem approaches to health, and was a speaker in the “Speakers of Renown” series that celebrated the 40th anniversary of Canada’s International Development Research Centre.

John Vanleeuwen, DVM, PhD
John Vanleeuwen has 23 years of veterinary research and teaching experience in Canada, Latin America and Africa. He has been on the Farmers Helping Farmers BOD here in PEI, as a director, as Vice-President, and as President. In addition to his board work, he is the coordinator of a growing program of veterinary research and training with smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya. He was Chief Research Officer for the PEI Health Research Institute, and national director of the Production Limiting Diseases Dairy Research Project. He was on the steering committee of the RURAL Centre at Dalhousie U, and is currently on the steering committee of the Centre for Veterinary Epidemiologic Research at UPEI, and the Canadian Excellence Research Chair for Aquatic Epidemiology at UPEI. He has been the AVC liaison for VWB/VSF for the past several years.

Staff

Erin Fraser, DVM, MSc - Managing Director

Erin is a veterinarian and an epidemiologist.  She completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Guelph in 1993. She is a 1998 graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College. In 1999, she completed a Master of Science degree in epidemiology at the University of Guelph. Her MSc research was conducted in Honduras where she investigated the role of small livestock in hillside farm communities and cooperated with sociologists, agronomists, and farmers to identify the key constraints and opportunities related to small livestock health and production.  Between 2000 and 2007, she worked as an epidemiologist at the Centre for Coastal Health on a variety wildlife health, risk assessment, zoonotic disease outbreak, and aquaculture projects. During the same period she also worked with the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Erin was a founding executive board member of VWB/VSF and in late 2007, was hired as its Program Director.

Sheila Taylor - Communications Manager

Sheila thinks variety is the spice of life. As the one-person communications department at Veterinarians without Borders, Sheila gets to do lots of different things, sometimes all at the same time. Born in East London, raised in the Scottish Highlands, Sheila came to Canada to attend Lester B. Pearson College, where she was known as the Scottish student. Canada made such an impression on her, that she chose to stay to continue her studies at the University of Victoria. Sheila wanted to learn more about the world so she took Political Science and Italian Studies.
Growing up in a three culture and language home, Sheila realized early on that communication is the key to success for individuals, families and organizations. With more than 10 years marketing and communications experience, Sheila uses lessons learned from her past work with an internet start-up, a publishing company, a local symphony orchestra and a rambling regional government to spread the word about Veterinarians without Borders. Find us on facebook!

Maleea Acker - Resource Development Manager

Maleea has worked in a variety of cultural, political and environmental sectors, writing and designing in communications and marketing for social and arts organizations and teaching poetry at Camosun College. Maleea is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and has received awards and fellowships for her writing from granting agencies and arts residencies in Canada, the USA, Mexico and Spain. She has an MFA from the University of Victoria and is the author of The Reflecting Pool, (poetry, Pedlar Press 2009) and Garden Aflame: Garry Oak Meadows on BC’s South Coast (non-fiction, New Star Book 2012). She has a gorgeous rescue dog named Maisie and is excited to help further the goals of VWB/VSF.

Sonia Fèvre, MSc - Regional Program Manager, Asia

Specialised in community development and capacity building, Sonia read Social Anthropology at King's College, University of Cambridge and completed her Masters in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. With experience in Asia, Europe and Latin America, Sonia is coordinating VWB-VSF's regional programs in Southeast Asia. The focus of these programmes is to develop pilot projects to support the growing Community of Practice for Ecohealth (COPEH) in the region.

Elena Garde, MSc - Regional Program Manager, Latin America

Elena has a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (Western College of Veterinary Medicine), a Diploma in International Animal Health (University of Edinburgh, Centre for Tropical Animal Diseases), and is in her final year of a research MSc (University of Edinburgh, Centre for Tropical Animal Diseases). Her research interests are in disease ecology existing at the interfaces between humans, domestic animals- particularly domestic dogs, and wildlife- particularly terrestrial mammals. Elena has been a Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires Sans Frontiéres- Canada (VWB/VSF) member since the beginning of the organization in 2005, and formally joined the team full-time in April 2009. She is currently working as the Program Leader for Latin America, with their regional office located in Valdivia Chile. The mission in Latin America is to develop long term sustainable programs addressing the complex issue of domestic dog overpopulation, and the multiple urban, rural and wild habitat health effects resulting from these uncontrolled populations.

Guillermo Perez, MSc - Regional Program Coordinator, Latin America

Guillermo E. Pérez, is a native Chilean who lived most of his adult life in Canada. He has a technical diploma in Forestry from Sir Sandford Fleming College, a degree in Natural Resource Science from Thompson Rivers University and a master’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan, where he studied the migratory movements of a threatened Canadian songbird using state-of-the-art technologies; stable isotope and genetic techniques. Guillermo joined the Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires Sans Frontières-Canada team, as the Latin American Research Director, in April 2009 to work on developing sustainable long-term community programs addressing the overpopulation of free-roaming dogs in Chile. His future career goals are to develop strong and long-lasting working relationships between the northern and southern hemisphere in the Americas and to help develop wildlife disease surveillance and ecohealth programs without borders.