Association for Veterinary Informatics Announces Dr. Theresa Bernardo as the Posthumous Recipient of the 2024 Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics

Dr. Theresa Bernardo, DVM, MSc has been named the posthumous recipient of the 2024 Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics, honoring individuals who have dedicated their career to being a leader, educator, and innovator in the field of veterinary informatics. The Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics is the only informatics award dedicated to those who have chosen to apply their knowledge to the veterinary field. The award is named after the pioneer Dr. Allen W. Hahn who represented these ideals and has been inspirational to so many.

Dr. Bernardo's career in veterinary informatics spanned over 30 years and bridged clinical practice, academia, intergovernmental organizations, and industry. In the early 1990s, she codeveloped HandiSTATUS, a groundbreaking software platform that provided the first digital maps of global animal disease distribution using data from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). Translated into four languages and used by over 100 countries, HandiSTATUS was officially adopted by the OIE and the FAO and served as the progenitor of the current World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS). Dr. Bernardo served as Director of Information Technology for the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University, where she was responsible for integrating informatics into education, research, and the teaching hospital. She went on to be selected as the first IDEXX Chair in Emerging Technologies and Bond Centered Animal Healthcare at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, an industry sponsored research chair directly tied to veterinary informatics. In this role, she led innovative research using big data from veterinary medical records, including a landmark study analyzing data from over 13 million cats that was featured in more than 200 newspapers worldwide. She also spearheaded research into Day 1 informatics competencies for graduating veterinarians and led the Informatics Working Group for the Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) initiative. A tireless advocate and educator, Dr. Bernardo delivered over 100 presentations on veterinary informatics to audiences around the world and provided training to veterinarians in over 30 countries. She served on advisory committees for the AVMA, the College of Veterinarians of Ontario, and contributed to the NAVMEC Roadmap for Veterinary Medical Education in the 21st Century. Her TEDx talk on the use of social media for disaster response and One Health has been viewed thousands of times. Dr. Bernardo's career exemplified the breadth and depth of veterinary informatics, from practical data management to global standards development, and her vision of a future where informatics shifts the focus of veterinary medicine from curing disease to maintaining health continues to inspire the field. Her legacy lives on through the countless veterinarians, students, and colleagues she mentored and the systems she helped build. Congratulations and rest in peace, Dr. Bernardo.

For more information on the Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics, please visit https://avinformatics.org/Hahn-Award. Applications for the 2026 awards will open in the fall of 2025.

ABOUT AVI

The Association for Veterinary Informatics (AVI, www.avinformatics.org) is interdisciplinary 501(c)(3) organization focused on biomedical informatics research, design, implementation, education and advocacy within the domain of veterinary medicine. AVI was founded by a group of about 20 veterinarians, meeting in St. Louis for the 1981 American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) convention, AVI operated under the name American Veterinary Computer Society (AVCS) until 1995. In 1998, AVI started the Talbot Informatics Symposium, in memory of Dr. Richard Talbot, a pioneer in veterinary informatics. AVI has grown to over 200 members across 17 countries who work with, advocate for, or work in the field of veterinary informatics.

Association for Veterinary Informatics Announces Dr. Mike Martin as the Recipient of the 2022 Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics

Dr. Mike Martin, DVM, MPH, DACVPM has been named the recipient of the 2022 Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics, honoring individuals who have dedicated their career to being a leader, educator, innovator in the field of veterinary informatics.  The Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics is the only informatics award dedicated to those who have chosen to apply their knowledge to the veterinary field.  The award is named after the pioneer Dr. Allen W. Hahn who represented these ideals and has been inspirational to so many.  

While Dr Martin spent the early years of his veterinary career in clinical practice, his focus shifted to public health in 1987 when he served as a Public Health Officer in the US Air Force at the rank of Captain.  He was the first PHO to attend Harvard School of Public Health where he received his MPH degree. After 8 years of military service and another eight years developing his skills in medical informatics, first by teaching computer science then by serving as Medical Informatics Director for the Connecticut Hospital Association, Dr. Martin returned to the veterinary community in 2003 as he helped to design the framework for the USDA National Animal Health Laboratory Network.  Dr. Martin has given nearly two decades as Area Epidemiologist and then Associate State Veterinarian in South Carolina,  working towards improving animal and public health using his informatics expertise.  He was instrumental in the development and growth of the NAHLN and the National Animal Identification System.  He founded and served as chairperson of the AAVLD/USAHA Subcommittee on Animal Health Data Standards which has published the standard for XML exchange of electronic certificates of veterinary inspection (eCVI).  He has created and modified numerous software packages, scripts and protocols to aid laboratories and regulatory agencies in assimilating, analyzing and sharing the data more effectively and efficiently.   He’s a highly respected and invited speaker in both medical and veterinary informatics.  He is the widely recognized subject matter expert on  veterinary informatics areas that pertain to the diagnostic laboratories including, but not limited to  messaging standards (XML/HL7), test data interchange standards (LOINC) and many others. 

Dr. Martin’s career has been long and impactful, but the respect and admiration of his colleagues highlights him  as a fitting recipient of this award.  Just as Dr. Hahn led us by example and through the encouragement of others, Dr. Martin is seen by his colleagues as a leader and a thoughtful, professional and consummate team player.  He’s widely sought out by colleagues at both state and federal level as an incredibly valuable resource who is generous with his time and his knowledge. Dr. Hahn would have been very proud to see this Award go to Dr. Martin, a modest man that thoroughly enjoys helping others.  Congratulations Dr. Martin.

For more information on the Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics, please visit https://avinformatics.org/Hahn-Award.  Applications for the 2024 awards will open in the fall of 2023.

ABOUT AVI

The Association for Veterinary Informatics (AVI - www.avinformatics.org) is interdisciplinary 501(c)(3) organization focused on biomedical informatics research, design, implementation, education and advocacy within the domain of veterinary medicine. AVI was founded by a group of about 20 veterinarians, meeting in St. Louis for the 1981 American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) convention, AVI operated under the name American Veterinary Computer Society (AVCS) until 1995. In 1998, AVI started the Talbot Informatics Symposium, in memory of Dr. Richard Talbot, a pioneer in veterinary informatics. AVI has grown to over 200 members across 17 countries who work with, advocate for, or work in the field of veterinary informatics.

Association for Veterinary Informatics Announces Dr. Jeff Wilcke as the Recipient of the 2020 Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics

Dr. Wilcke has been named the recipient of the 2020 Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics, honoring individuals who have dedicated their career to being a leader, educator, innovator in the field of veterinary informatics.

When Dr. Wilcke started his veterinary career, he could never have anticipated the twists and turns that led him to a career in informatics. As a senior veterinary student with a strong interest in pharmacology, Dr. Wilcke realized early on that there simply was not enough information available from patient studies to make good clinical decisions based on evidence.  This led to his residency in the newly emerging field of Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology where he expected to do (and did) clinical, patient-based research. He joined the faculty at Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine in 1982 where he would spend the rest of his career.  While teaching and supporting students and research at VMVCM, he continued to support the growth and development of the new American College of Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology (ACVCP). A decade later, the tragic loss of his colleague and friend, Dick Talbot, the founding dean of VMCVM, brought him to another newly emerging field: veterinary informatics. When Dr. Wilcke inherited the position of Director of Information Resources and head of the Drug Information Lab, he had no idea where this field was headed or that it would be the place where he could make the most impact on achieving better patient data.  Under his leadership, the Drug Information Lab transitioned the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine Greenbook from a printed publication to an interactive online database, creating the website that would eventually become Drugs@FDA. As the AVMA Secretariat to SNOMED International, member of the SNOMED Editorial Board, and eventually Chairman of the Organisms and Infectious Disease Committee at SNOMED, Dr. Wilcke not only made a place for veterinary medicine within the SNOMED world, but contributed considerably to the early development of SNOMED. One example of this is his groundbreaking collaborative paper with Art Smith that laid the foundation for the SNOMED compositional grammar. Dr. Wilcke has been a stalwart supporter of the use of informatics in all aspects of veterinary medicine. His efforts grew the Informatics program at VMCVM from the narrowly focused Drug Information Lab to the Veterinary Terminology Services lab that maintains the official Veterinary Extension of SNOMED CT supporting the USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network and  providing terminology support for companion animal and equine health records via the AAHA Problem and Diagnosis Terms, the Small Animal Specialty Problem and Diagnosis Terms and the AAEP Problem and Diagnosis Terms. Dr. Wilcke is highly published in both pharmacology and informatics, lecturing at the local, state, national and international levels. His influence on the growth of the veterinary informatics field is undeniable, and his tenacity for keeping veterinary medicine “at the table” of developing standards over the years has brought us to a place where we can begin to realize some of the goals of interconnectivity in veterinary medicine that are offered by the informatics field.  

The Association for Veterinary Informatics (AVI – www.avinformatics.org) awarded Dr. Craig Carter the inaugural award at the 2019 Talbot Symposium at Fetch DVM360 in Kansas City (https://www.fetchdvm360.com/fetch-dvm360-veterinary-conference-kansas-city/).

The Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics is the only informatics award dedicated to those who have chosen to apply their knowledge to the veterinary field.  The award is named after the pioneer Dr. Allen W. Hahn who represented these ideals and has been inspirational to so many. Those nominated must be supported by those in veterinary medicine as an innovator, leader, educator, and they must have been inspirational to others. These individuals do not need to have retired from the field to be nominated.  Once nominated, they are reviewed by a committee following a publicly available rubric. 

For more information on the Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics, please visit https://avinformatics.org/Hahn-Award.  Applications for the 2021 awards will open in the fall of 2020.

ABOUT AVI

The Association for Veterinary Informatics (AVI - www.avinformatics.org) is interdisciplinary 501(c)(3) organization focused on biomedical informatics research, design, implementation, education and advocacy within the domain of veterinary medicine. AVI was founded by a group of about 20 veterinarians, meeting in St. Louis for the 1981 American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) convention, AVI operated under the name American Veterinary Computer Society (AVCS) until 1995. In 1998, AVI started the Talbot Informatics Symposium, in memory of Dr. Richard Talbot, a pioneer in veterinary informatics. AVI has grown to over 200 members across 17 countries who work with, advocate for, or work in the field of veterinary informatics.

Dr. Lustgarten, AVI President, presenting Dr. Carter with the Allen W. Hahn Lifetime Achievement Award in Veterinary Informatics at the Talbot Veterinary Informatics Symposium at the 2019 Fetch dvm360 Kansas City conference.