Mark Gearhart Award
The Mark Gearhart Award recognizes a graduate student who is completing, or has just completed, advanced academic or professional training in veterinary epidemiology, public health, or preventive medicine. This award is the AVEPM’s “Best Paper” of the year award. Graduate students who are current AVEPM members, or whose advisors are current members, are eligible to enter the competition.
Mark Gearhart (1956-1989) died in a plane crash in Sioux City, Iowa in July 1989. Mark had been an active member of the AVEPM (then the ATVPHPM or “Teachers Association”) for seven years. He did his undergraduate work at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio then earned his DVM at The Ohio State University in 1982. Both degrees were awarded summa cum laude. Following an internship at the Ontario Veterinary College, he enrolled at Colorado State University and earned an MS degree in Clinical Sciences and a residency certificate in food animal medicine and herd health. In May 1989, he obtained a second Master’s degree in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics at CSU. At the time of his death, he worked as a graduate research associate in the Department of Clinical Sciences at CSU and was enrolled in a PhD program in analytic epidemiology and dairy production. Mark was very well liked and worked closely with dairy and sheep producers in the Fort Collins area. Veterinary medicine, particularly preventive veterinary medicine, suffered a great loss with the death of one of its brightest stars at such a young age. This memorial award was established to honor Mark’s memory.
Past award recipients:
2025 Lucas Horton, Kansas State University, for "Stochastic modelling of economic risk and net return distributions for feedlot steers marketed at alternative endpoints”
2024 Colette Nickodem, Texas A&M University, for “An experimental field trial investigating the use of bacteriophage and manure slurry applications in beef cattle feedlot pens for Salmonella mitigation”
2023 Samantha Locke, The Ohio State University, for “Prevalence and sources of Salmonella lymph node infection in special-fed veal calves”
2021 Nadine Vogt, University of Guelph, for “Rural raccoons (Procyon lotor) not likely to be a major driver of antimicrobial resistant human Salmonella cases in southern Ontario, Canada: A One Health epidemiological assessment using whole-genome sequence data”
2019 Gizem Levent, Texas A&M University, for “Population dynamics of Salmonella enterica following single dose metaphylactic antibiotic use within cohorts of beef cattle followed to slaughter”
2018 Lauren C. Wisnieski, Michigan State University, for “Predictive models for early lactation diseases in transition dairy cattle at dry-off”
2017 Naomi Ohta, Texas A&M University, for “Population dynamics of enteric Salmonella in response to antimicrobial use in beef feedlot cattle”
2016 Jonah N. Cullen, Iowa State University, for “The case-control design in veterinary sciences: A survey”
2015 Charley Cull, Kansas State University, for "Performance and carcass characteristics of commercial feedlot cattle from a study of vaccine and direct-fed microbial effects on Escherichia coli O157:H7 fecal shedding"
2014 Noelle R. Noyes, Colorado State University, for “Mannheimia haemolytica in feedlot cattle: prevalence of recovery and associations with antimicrobial use, resistance and health outcomes”
2013 João Ribeiro-Lima, University of Minnesota, for “From network analysis to risk analysis – An approach to risk-based surveillance for bovine tuberculosis in Minnesota, US”
2013 Audrey Ruple, Colorado State University, for “Using syndromic surveillance to estimate baseline rates for healthcare-associated infections in critical care units of small animal referral hospitals”
2012 Brandy Burgess, Colorado State University, for “Nasal shedding of Equine Herpesvirus-1 from horses in an outbreak of Equine Herpes Myeloencephalopathy in Western Canada”
2011 Rebecca Smith, Cornell University, for "Environmental contamination with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in endemically infected dairy herds"
2010 Katie Steneroden, Colorado State University, for “Zoonotic disease awareness in animal shelter workers and volunteers and the effect of training”
2009 Keri Norman, Texas A&M University, for "Varied prevalence of Clostridium difficile in an integrated swine operation"
2008 Renata Ivanek, Cornell University, for "Extreme value theory in analysis of differential expression in microarrays where either only up- or down-regulated genes are relevant or expected"
2007 W.Q. Alali, Texas A&M University, for "Longitudinal study of antimicrobial resistance among Escherichia coli isolates from integrated multi-site cohorts of humans and swine"
2005 George Moore, Purdue University, for "Adverse events diagnosed within three days of vaccine administration in dogs" and "Postmarketing surveillance for dog and cat vaccines: new resources in changing times"
2003 Ashley E Hill, University of California, Davis “Evaluation of a stochastic Markov-chain model for the development of forelimb injuries in Thoroughbred racehorses”
2002 Guy H. Loneragan, Texas A&M University, “The effect of antibiotic on fecal shedding of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in pre-weaned calves”