Ashley Hill
Growing up in San Francisco, Ashley Hill wanted to be a veterinarian as long as she could avoid math. She dreamt of acquiring a horse, intending to keep it in the tiny backyard. Her parents’ solution was a lot of Breyer horse models. As an undergraduate at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, she found herself looking for a way to fulfill science and quantitative requirements but avoid math and bench science. That ruled out calculus, biology, and chemistry so instead she took geology and computer science. Summers, she worked at a children’s horse camp. After graduation, she worked in computer support from a fluorescent-lit basement, missing horses, the outdoors, and natural light She liked solving problems and helping people, but wanted to do that in an animal health context. When she decided to apply to vet school, she hadn’t had any of the science or math prerequisites, so she had to take chemistry, physics etc. She took her statistics class by mail because she couldn’t manage the scheduling conflicts. Not the auspicious beginning to a career managing data as an epidemiologist!
Ashley’s goal in veterinary school was to be a mixed animal veterinarian but that goal met a stumbling block in her senior year when she suffered tendinitis in her tail-holding hand from palpating cows. But her interests evolved, especially during her internship at an Idaho experimental station where the flock of more than 3000 lambs succumbed to a high incidence of dummy lambs with sepsis, failure to thrive, and fatality. Lacking formal tools to approach the problem, Ashley and the station team applied first principles to do necropsies, collect and collate data, and invent an outbreak investigation that eventually discovered thyroid pathology due to a lack of iodine. When they presented their findings to the station manager, further exploration documented that the ewe rations had been accidentally misformulated, as Ashley’s team had surmised. This event marked a turning point for her, confirming that she wanted to become an epidemiologist.
Former MPVM Director Dave Hird taught first year epidemiology to Ashley’s class, and he encouraged her to consider the MPVM which at the time could integrate well as a dual degree with the DVM. Ashley did not take this route, choosing non-MPVM electives every time but remaining on the mailing list. Faculty would post that they were looking for students interested in poultry or cattle, but her attention was caught by the request from Dr. Sue Stover for a student interested in racehorse injuries. Her MPVM study segued into a PhD also with Dr. Stover and eventually a job at Colorado State University, but she was attracted back to UCD for her faculty job at the California Animal Health and Food Safety laboratory, in part because UCD has such a “deep epidemiology bench”. The CAHFS job description focused on immunology, not a skillset in which Ashley felt particularly strong, but she was willing to learn.
Now Ashley is the sole epidemiologist for CAHFS entire statewide system, co-director of CAHFS, and a professor in the Department of Medicine and Epidemiology. She teaches in the Epidemiology and MPVM graduate groups and has considerable administrative duties as well. A major part of her job involves making the findings that come from the CAHFS laboratories and necropsy floor as useful as possible for practitioners and other stakeholders. So she helps interpret data such as changes in serologic titers or survival rates to gain insight into herd health problems that might be managed. The skills she learned in the MPVM are used almost every day in her work, for example interpreting and explaining diagnostic tests and interpreting science to regulatory officials, both of which require a solid understanding of epidemiology.
Ashley is often seen knitting, sweaters, hats, and a cape that auctioned for $700 at the American Association for Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians auction. She also loves to sew, cook, and play music. She looks back gratefully at the MPVM program which bridged veterinary school and her career for her. She loves that it incorporated coursework and research, but especially loved the variety in cultures among the other students in her cohort. She may not be outdoors as much as she wanted, but she uses her skills to solve problems for animals, just as she always dreamed.