Our monthly series of CAHFS Spotlights highlights our residents, graduate students, faculty, and staff. This month we're spotlighting one of our veterinary public health and preventive medicine residents, Dr. James Kincheloe.

How did you end up at the U of M? I attended undergraduate and veterinary school at the University of California, Davis and joined the VPHPM Residency after having worked in production dairy medicine and small animal medicine in California. The residency seemed like a great opportunity to gain further experience and training in public health and agricultural policy, where my professional interests lie.

What do you do at CAHFS? As a VPHPM resident, my current projects include examining how the prion disease Chronic Wasting Disease (similar to Mad Cow) enters deer and elk farms farms and the current biosecurity and management practices of these farms in relation to the disease. I am also working with the state to improve our response infrastructure to foreign animal disease outbreaks, such as the 2015 Avian Influenza Outbreak that occurred in 2015. My primary interests in public health are sustainable agricultural development and policy. I use my background in food animal production to bring a practical outlook to development projects and policy while exploring means to build long term agricultural capacity.

What are you known for professionally? On my teams, I like to be output driven, thinking about what exact results we are focused on achieving and continuously moving in that direction, and being healthily critical of our own performances. I enjoy working at the University and collaborating with large teams to achieve complicated health program outcomes.

What are you most passionate about professionally? I’m most interested in sustainable food production: what are the best ways to achieve a safe, nutritious, and secure food supply for the population? The field is large, but that underlying interest has allowed me to be involved in a wide variety of projects, from disease surveillance development in Uganda to FDA food claim and safety approval policy. Every day at work can be completely different!

What’s your favorite way to spend a weekend or Sunday afternoon? I have way too many hobbies and unsuccessfully attempted to scale back during the residency. My free time is varied. You could find me fly fishing (looking forward to trying out some more of the Minnesota lakes and rivers), reading history novels, practicing guitar, practicing French, playing strategy games, or beer and wine tasting depending on the weekend.

Where did you grow up and why are you not there now? I grew up in wine country about an hour north of San Francisco, CA. I had to leave because being that close to so much good wine is not conducive to a productive professional life! In reality, though, I enjoy trying out new locations. This has challenged me and helped me grow as a person.

Anything else you would like people to know about yourself? Feel free to swing by my office and distract me from work anytime. I enjoy good conversation and hearing about other people’s work and fun.

Read more of our VPHPM Residents unique perspectives and weekly summaries of essential veterinary public health news highlights in the CAHFS Weekly Update, written by residents and delivered to your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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