Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Mary Croughan this month announced the appointment of a new dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine and the establishment of the new position of vice provost for grand challenges — to be filled by Jonna Mazet.

School of Veterinary Medicine

Mark Stetter, dean and professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University, will officially become dean of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine on Oct. 18.

“The School of Veterinary Medicine, a widely recognized world leader in its field, exemplifies veterinary education, research, and care — and UC Davis — at their best,” said Mary Croughan, provost and executive vice chancellor. “It was critical for us to find a new dean who could carry on and advance the school’s stellar legacy. We are very fortunate that Dr. Stetter has agreed to serve in this critical leadership position.” 

Stetter replaces John Pascoe, who has served as interim dean since July 1, when Michael Lairmore stepped down after nearly 10 years as dean. Croughan has expressed her deep gratitude for Pascoe’s skilled interim service and Lairmore’s decade of distinguished leadership at SVM. 

Read the Mark Stetter news release.

Taking on grand challenges

The tragic personal and social costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the devastating effects of climate change to the Earth and its living things, have powerfully driven home a critical lesson: If we want to protect ourselves and our world, we must, without further delay, make unprecedented efforts to address the global challenges that most threaten them.

Mindful of this imperative, UC Davis is now building on its history of leadership in addressing global problems, and on the many efforts in this vein dispersed across its colleges and schools, to create a collective response to global “grand challenges” that is better focused, coordinated, and resourced — and more effective — than it has ever been.

To lead this ambitious undertaking, the university has recently named Jonna Mazet — a highly distinguished professor of epidemiology and disease ecology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine — to the new position of vice provost for grand challenges. As the founder and former director of the UC Davis One Health Institute, and a leading researcher on pandemics and other global health threats, Mazet has extensive experience in developing innovative and collaborative approaches to what she calls the world’s “large-scale wicked problems.”

Read the Jonna Mazet news release.