By Sim Khanuja
Leah Owens (PhD ’22, DVM ’25) spent the first half of her career in biomedical research before attending the UW School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM).
Owens grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, exploring the woods near her grandmother’s home, becoming fascinated by wildlife, especially amphibians and reptiles. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis and earning an MS in molecular biology at Princeton, she spent years studying biological processes at a small scale, analyzing single proteins and genes in lab settings.
A 2015 research externship at the St. Louis Zoo’s Institute Conservation Medicine under Dr. Sharon Deem shifted Owens’ career trajectory. Deem took a multidisciplinary approach to research, linking human communities, native wildlife, and ecosystem health, and Owens realized she wanted to work with animal populations. That revelation drew Owens to UW-Madison for veterinary school.
“It’s rare that you find medical, pharmacy, nursing, and veterinary schools, and world-class, internationally recognized, cutting-edge research happening all in the same place, facilitating cross-disciplinary collaborations,” she says.
Interdisciplinary research in wildlife ecology
After starting veterinary school, Owens connected with Dr. Tony Goldberg (Department of Pathobiological Sciences), an expert on the ecology, epidemiology, and evolution of infectious disease, and decided to pursue an DVM/PhD. Her doctoral research in Goldberg’s lab focused on wildlife disease ecology, using next-generation sequencing approaches to investigate disease outbreaks and parasitology.
“I learned so much in the lab, because we were all interested in disease ecology and wildlife epidemiology, but in totally different systems,” says Owens. “It was a perfect place to get involved in different types of work, with important conservation implications.”
Owens was the first author of a paper detailing the discovery of a novel Sarcina bacterium linked to a lethal disease in sanctuary chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. Her doctoral research also produced a patented sequencing test for detecting terrestrial and aquatic parasites in complex samples.
Owens credits Goldberg with showing her how to combine science and veterinary practice in her career.
“Tony evolved over his career to work in many systems and cultivate a large, diverse network of expert collaborators,” says Owens. “I would also like to be able to adapt and apply my knowledge and tools to pressing conservation questions.”
After completing her PhD and DVM, Owens joined Verona Veterinary Medical Service in 2025, caring for dogs, cats, small mammals, reptiles, poultry, and livestock.
Working as a conservation veterinarian
Owens leverages her broad clinical expertise in her current role as Conservation Veterinarian at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which bridges medicine and field conservation research. The aquarium campus features two main exhibit buildings, housing 13,000 animals across 700 species; the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute; and the Animal Care Facility.
Owens provides veterinary care for all the aquarium’s animals: those on exhibit, those behind the scenes, and the conservation collection, including aquatic species raised on site for reintroduction into the wild. She also develops and conducts interdisciplinary research that investigates how human activities impact the interplay between aquatic animal health and surrounding environments.
“There are so many ways to get to work with animals,” says Owens. “Here at the aquarium, we have aquarists, academic researchers, water quality experts, people doing conservation work on the ground talking to farmers, and vets. I think it’s amazing to have all these different types of professionals together working on the same problem.”
Advising students to stay open-minded
Owens encourages students to stay open-minded and embrace non-linear paths.
“Be open to new possibilities and don’t get too stuck on a specific series of steps to get to a goal,” says Owens. “There’s not one route to getting to a cool job that you love.”
Owens also stresses that career pivots are possible at any stage.
“I did something different for the first half of my adult life,” says Owens. “I thought it would be harder to go back to school when I did, but honestly, it was exactly what I wanted it to be.”