Alison Jeffery

• Program: PhD Candidate 
• Supervisor: Dr. Matheus Costa, Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences
• Home Community: Tillsonburg, ON

• Agr, University of Guelph
• Sc (Vet Micro), Université de Montréal

Alison is from Tillsonburg, Ontario where she grew up on a hobby farm. In 2015, she attended the University of Guelph where she completed her BSc. Agriculture degree in Animal Science. Alison’s love for research started when she worked at the Ontario Veterinary College in the swine epidemiology department.  After graduation, she then attended the Université de Montréal to pursue a master’s degree in veterinary microbiology. Alison’s thesis focused on Streptococcus suis in swine and developing an autogenous vaccine for treatment.  In 2022, Alison moved to Saskatoon as a laboratory technician at USask.  She soon began her Ph. D program in September 2023 under Dr. Costa.

Ear-tip necrosis (ETN) is an infectious disease that results in progressive loss of the ear in nursery and grower pigs. It is a seemingly painful condition, and currently there are no effect treatments available. The Costa lab have discovered the causative agent and are working on investigating the disease.