Swine Health Information Center Names New Executive Director

Sep 18, 2023

The Swine Health Information Center has announced its plans for transitioning to a new Executive Director.Effective January 1st Swine Health Information Center Associate Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder is scheduled to move into the position of Executive Director.

Current Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg, who's held the position since SHIC's formation in 2015 and has announced his plans to retire at the end of this year, says SHIC is partnered with the National Pork Board, the National Pork Producers Council and the American Associations of Swine Veterinarians and collaborates with the veterinarians, the pork producers themselves and university researchers nationally and internationally.

Quote-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:

The objectives are all in our mission statement.It includes information, it includes global disease monitoring which is both domestic and international.
Globally we want to monitor disease.

We want to make sure people have information about that and we want to do targeted research to decrease the risk to the U.S. swine herd from emerging diseases.SHIC has been focussed on emerging diseases.

We were surprised, although we shouldn't have been, but we were surprised in 2013 when PED got into the U.S. and caused a loss of upwards of 10 percent of our production.At that point the National Pork Board's Board of Directors said we need to do things differently, so let's fund a center to look over the hill and help us prevent what's coming at us if we can, at least predict will come what will come at us so we are better prepared and we are able to effectively respond and recover.

That's really the focus for the Swine Health Information Center, prevention, preparation, response and recovery from emerging diseases that may come our way.

Dr. Sundberg says applications are now being accepted for the position of Associate Director.He notes the position description as well as the application process and time lines are posted on the Swine Health Information Center web site at swinehealth.org.

Source : Farmscape.ca

Video: How Data Predicts Swine Outbreaks - Swaminathan Jayaraman

In this episode of The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, Swaminathan Jayaraman, Research Assistant and PhD Candidate at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, explains how integrated data systems can improve disease surveillance in swine production. He discusses combining diagnostics, animal movement data, production records, and spatial analytics to identify risks earlier and support proactive decision-making for PRRS, PED, and swine influenza. Listen now on all major platforms!

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Meet the guest: Swaminathan Jayaraman / swamjay is a Graduate Research Assistant at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine. With academic training in management information systems and engineering, he focuses on integrating diagnostic, production, and movement data to improve disease surveillance and decision support in swine production systems. Listen to Swaminathan Jayaraman on The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, available on all major platforms.