State of Knowledge Regarding Transmission, Spread, and Management of Chronic Wasting Disease in U.S. Captive and Free-Ranging Cervid Populations (2025)
Chapter: Appendix A: Committee Biographical Information
Appendix A
Committee Biographical Information
Lonnie King (Chair) is an academy professor and dean emeritus in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the Ohio State University (OSU). He previously served as OSU’s vice-president for agriculture and was the first director for the National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-borne, and Enteric Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service where he also was the nation’s chief veterinary officer for 5 years. King’s research interests and expertise include emerging infectious diseases, zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and security, global health, One Health, and leadership development. He received an honorary degree from Tufts University in 2022 and was awarded the Global One Health Award from the World Veterinary Medical Association and the Meritorious Award from the World Organization for Animal Health. King received a B.S. and D.V.M. from OSU, an M.S. in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota, and an M.P.A. from American University. He is boarded in the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine and completed the Senior Executive Fellowship in Leadership from Harvard University. He has served on numerous National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study committees as well as the Forum on Microbial Threats and the One Health Action Collaborative.
Sonja Ann Christensen is an assistant professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University. Christensen has worked in the field of wildlife research and management for 20 years at multiple state agencies and universities. From April 2008 to August 2011, she worked for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife as a deer and moose project leader with statewide wildlife management responsibilities, including supervising the statewide cervid disease program, prior to returning to academia and obtaining her Ph.D. She serves as the principal investigator for the Christensen Lab for Wildlife Population Health where she and her students research uses of quantitative modeling, field ecology, and social science methods to study wildlife disease ecology, population ecology, and wildlife management, with a special focus on diseases associated with cervid species. Christensen’s outreach program includes working with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies to provide technical support and coordination around fish and wildlife health issues and supporting capacity-building for wildlife health. She is a co-founder of the CWD [Chronic Wasting Disease] Research Consortium and multistate project (NC1209). She also serves as an uncompensated member of the U.S. Geological Survey Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program Council where she provides state agency perspectives for research programs. Christensen received an M.S. in fisheries and wildlife science from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in fisheries and wildlife with a specialization in disease ecology and conservation medicine from Michigan State University. She is a past president of the Michigan Chapter of the Wildlife Society and previous board member of
the Wildlife Society’s Wildlife Disease Working Group. She is a member of the Wildlife Disease Association and the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society. Christensen has received compensation for service as the Fish and Wildlife Health Coordinator from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Christensen provides interviews for media and podcasts, and outreach for state fish and wildlife agencies regarding CWD and other cervid diseases.
Matthew C. Dunfee is the director of Special Programs for the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) and served as the conservation program specialist in WMI’s headquarters working on projects related to North American wildlife conservation, private lands habitat programs, and free-ranging cervid disease management. He also serves as the director of the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Alliance, the chair of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, co-chair of the National Hunting and Shooting Sports Action Plan, chair of the CWD Applied Research Management Grant Program, and administrator for the International CWD Information and Data Sharing Hub. Dunfee serves on numerous professional committees and boards including the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Fish and Wildlife Health Committee. He has led state, regional, and national strategic decision-making processes targeting effective management of CWD in wild cervid populations, including in Colorado, Tennessee, Kansas, North Dakota, and the U.S. Geological Survey. He was awarded the International Hunter Education Association U.S.A. Dr. Edward Kozicky Award and a Distinguished Service Award from the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports. Dunfee received a B.S. in fish, wildlife, and conservation biology from Colorado State University. Dunfee served as a science and technical advisor for several conservation nongovernmental organizations within the past 5 years, including, for example, the National Wildlife Federation, the Boone and Crockett Club, and the National Military Fish and Wildlife Association. Dunfee has provided talks and interviews for numerous podcasts, organizations, and media outlets on the history and status of CWD and available CWD management tools.
David C. Finnoff is a Wyoming Excellence Chair and Professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming. His research focus is on risk management in coupled human, natural systems. He has led many research projects that include management of grizzly bears and wolves, optimal endangered species listing decisions, management of wild game species facing threats of brucellosis and chronic wasting disease (CWD), and management of forests under threat of beetle outbreaks. He has been awarded federal grants to conduct research, including projects aimed at managing coupled systems facing tipping points, the development of integrated economic/epidemiological models for management of infectious diseases that threaten humans, and the development of linked economic/ecosystem models. Other funded projects include several aimed at the development of integrated models for management of economic and ecological systems subject to the risk of invasive species. Recently, Finnoff has extended a line of work on optimal social investments to reduce pandemic risks to consider the economic and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of public policy in reducing the risks associated with COVID-19, and modeling frameworks to consider the implications of future novel disease risks that incorporate risk-driven behavioral responses and how concern for others influences decisions. Finnoff received a B.S. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wyoming. Finnoff is a co-author on a paper in which a predictive model simulating animal welfare related to CWD transmission in a variety of wildlife management scenarios related to elk feedgrounds is described.
Thomas Gidlewski retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in 2021 after 35 years of service. He is currently an instructor for the APHIS foreign animal disease courses at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. Prior to retirement from USDA APHIS, he was the program manager for the Wildlife Services, Wildlife Disease Program as well as the attending veterinarian for the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado. Prior to this position he served APHIS in various roles, including senior staff veterinarian with the Chronic Wasting Disease Program; pathologist in the General Pathology and Pathology Investigations Section of the Pathobiology Laboratory at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa; port veterinarian at the Port of Sweetgrass, Montana; and field veterinary medical officer in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky and Logan, Utah. Gidlewski’s research in domestic animal and wildlife diseases primarily includes avian influenza, brucellosis, foot and mouth disease, rabbit hemorrhagic disease, heartwater, tuberculosis, and chronic wasting disease. Gidlewski received an M.S. in poultry nutrition from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, an M.S. in veterinary pathology from Iowa State University, and a D.V.M. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Nicholas J. Haley is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Midwestern University. His research has focused on chronic wasting disease (CWD) management in captive cervid populations through both live-animal testing and selective breeding of animals thought to be less susceptible to the disease. He has published extensively on topics related to CWD transmission, pathogenesis, testing, and management in cervids. He has been given “Friend of the Industry” awards from both the North American Elk Breeders and Whitetails of Wisconsin, and in 2021 he received the Zoetis Distinguished Teacher award for outstanding teaching and achievement in the field of veterinary medicine. Haley received a D.V.M. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University.
Debbie McKenzie is an emeritus professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta, where she also served as the associate dean of the graduate faculty of science. Her research team used several different model systems, ranging from cell-free to cell culture to primary neuronal cultures to transgenic mice to deer, to address questions regarding the etiology and pathogenesis of chronic wasting disease (CWD); the research is performed in the state-of-the art Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases. Her research focuses on the role of PRNP genetics in susceptibility to prion infection, CWD strain characterization and evolution, intra- and inter-species transmission of CWD prions, and development of biomarkers for prion diseases. McKenzie received a Ph.D. in medical biochemistry from the University of Calgary and has been involved in prion disease research since 1988.
Michael W. Miller served as a wildlife veterinarian with the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife from 1989 until his retirement from state service in 2022. Miller has studied a variety of topics related to the ecology and management of infectious diseases affecting wildlife in Colorado and elsewhere. As a veterinarian and scientist, he has extensive experience trying to understand and control chronic wasting disease (CWD) in both captive and free-ranging cervids. Miller has received regional and international awards recognizing his achievements in advancing wildlife health sciences and management, including his work on CWD. Miller received a B.S. in zoology with a biochemistry minor, a D.V.M., and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University. Miller’s former employer, the Colorado Division of Wildlife, has a long history of setting policies, regulations, plans, and management actions related to the control of CWD. He served on ad hoc working groups providing scientific opinions on CWD to the European Food Safety Authority on behalf of the European Commission and chaired the Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies’ Wildlife Heath Committee, which advised the group’s directors on topics related to CWD and its control. He has given many scientific presentations and published numerous papers on CWD throughout his career.
Rodrigo Morales is a professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston. He has 20 years of experience in the field of protein misfolding diseases, specifically in prion and Alzheimer’s diseases. His main research topics involve the prion-like nature of Aβ aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease, the contribution of peripheral tissues and blood in amyloid pathology, the study of environmental components contributing to chronic wasting disease dissemination, the strain and species barrier phenomena in prion diseases, and the pathological interaction between amyloidogenic proteins. Morales received a Ph.D. from the University of Chile.
Margo J. Pybus leads Alberta, Canada’s provincial wildlife disease program area and directly or indirectly contributes to ongoing disease and management-related programs, policies, research, recommendations, and education/outreach. She initiated and has led Alberta’s ongoing wildlife chronic wasting disease (CWD) program since it began in 1998 and contributes to a wide range of CWD provincial, national, and international research initiatives. A long-standing member of the Wildlife Disease Association and the Wildlife Society, Pybus recently received the Wildlife Disease Association Tom Thorne & Beth Williams Memorial Award for lifetime achievement. She also is a former president of the Alberta Chapter of the Wildlife Society and recipient of the highest chapter honors. Subsequent to her groundbreaking master’s thesis work, a nematode species now bears her name. Pybus received a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. from the University of Guelph and a Ph.D. in wildlife parasites and diseases from the University of Alberta.
Tiffany Marie Wolf is an assistant professor of ecosystem health at the College of Veterinary Medicine and co-director of the Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach (MNPRO) at the University of Minnesota (UMN). Prior to becoming faculty, she was an associate veterinarian of the Minnesota Zoo for 10 years. 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, she partners with Tribal Nations and other Indigenous communities in addressing their research priorities on issues such as zoonotic disease emergence, dog health, and chronic wasting disease (CWD). Wolf is the recipient of the UMN Community Engaged Scholar Award, Academy of Excellence in Team Science Award, and McKnight Land Grant Professorship. Notably, the Team Science Award was based on the accomplishments of the MNPRO team in research and education on CWD and other prion diseases. Wolf received a D.V.M. from Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. from UMN. As co-director of MNPRO, Wolf has provided public testimony to Minnesota legislators on CWD science and MNPRO research and outreach activities to inform management decisions related to the control of CWD in the state.
