Dr. Karen Shaprio is an associate professor with the Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology in the UC Davis school of Veterinary Medicine. Her research interests include transport and fate of zoonotic pathogens in watershed and coastal ecosystems.

How did you decide to study health and health ecosystems ?

I have always been very interested in issues surrounding water - more specifically concerns surrounding the realization that with increasing human-mediated pressures on the planet we do not have enough clean water to keep supporting the needs of people, domestic animals, and wildlife alike . With my training in veterinary medicine, I became increasingly interested in waterborne infectious diseases and how diminishing water quality and quantity affects the health of people and animals alike. I decided to focus my graduate training and career since then on the One Health global challenge of pathogen pollution. I am especially grateful that at UC Davis there are so many amazing people and collaborators that I can work with, especially at the vet school, the One Health Institute, and the Coastal Marine Sciences Institute which supports my work on land-sea coastal pollution. 

How have your past experiences prepared you for working at UC Davis/ Did you have any other jobs?

I did all of my post-secondary training at UC Davis... So as you can imagine I have spent the majority of my life in this town! I did leave from 2015-2019 when I spent a few years in Guelph, Canada working as an adjunct professor. That experience was very productive as it helped form new research collaborations with faculty from Canadian institutes including new research on pathogen pollution in the Arctic. 

What about teaching at UC Davis do you love?

I love that I have the opportunity to teach students from different backgrounds and at different stages of their education. I am co-teaching a One Health undergraduate course that is a lot of fun, providing diverse topics that are taught by an entire team of One Health practitioners, including plant pathologists, vector-borne disease experts, and climate and human health professors from the medical school. At the veterinary school, I mostly teach lectures and labs in parasitology which is also a topic near and dear to my heart. 

Besides being a professor, what are some outside hobbies you enjoy right now?

What would your students be surprised to find out about you?

I spent a summer during my undergrad years doing wolf howling surveys in northern Montana. It was great fun and I learned a lot about the history of wildlife eradication in North America and the slow recovery process to bring some of these animal populations back to their natural habitat. I also spent the rest of that summer on a dude ranch working cattle on horseback. The transition from working with wildlife biologists to cattle farmers over a duration of a single summer was quite an experience - and eye-opening in terms of understanding complex ecological issues from different stakeholder perspectives. 

What is the best piece of advice anyone has given you?

Keep an open mind. What is not possible today might be tomorrow and a few mistakes might just lead to amazing discoveries.