Associate Professor - Veterinary Population Medicine

wells023@umn.edu

Degrees

D.V.M. 1984 Michigan State University, College of Veterinary Medicine
Ph.D. 1992 University of Minnesota, Veterinary Medicine Graduate Program

Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine

Research Interests

• Epidemiologic studies related to the control of manure-cycle pathogens in dairy cattle and other food-producing animals, including Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (Johne's disease) and Salmonella spp.
• Use of analytic epidemiologic techniques to evaluate management factors associated with economically important disease conditions in livestock, including monitoring and surveillance, herd prevalence estimation, risk factor modeling, attributable risk estimation, and use of data from complex surveys.

Instructional areas

• Clinical Epidemiology and Advanced Clinical Epidemiology
• Veterinary Public Health and Advanced Veterinary Public Health Clinical Rotations
• Monitoring and Surveillance of Foodborne Diseases of Humans and Animals

Publications

Some representative Publications

• Wells SJ, Fedorka-Cray PJ, et al. 2001. Fecal shedding of Salmonella spp. by dairy cows on-farm and at cull cow markets. Journal of Food Protection, 64:3-11.
• Wells SJ , Whitlock RH, et al. 2002. Sensitivity of test strategies used in the U.S. Voluntary Johne's Disease Herd Status Program for detection of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in dairy cattle herds . Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 220:1053-1057.
• Wells SJ , Whitlock RH, et al. 2002. Evaluation of bacterial culture of pooled fecal samples for detection of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis . American Journal of Veterinary Research, 63:1207-1211.
• Wells SJ , Godden S, et al. 2003. Evaluation of bacteriologic culture of individual and pooled fecal samples for detection of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in dairy cattle herds, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 223:1022-1025.
• Fossler C, Wells SJ, et al. 2004. Prevalence of Salmonella spp. on conventional and organic dairy farms. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 225:567-573.
• Raizman EA, Wells SJ, et al. 2004. The distribution of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in the environment surrounding Minnesota dairy farms. Journal of Dairy Science, 87:2959-2966.
• Raizman EA, Wells SJ, et al. 2005. Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis from free-ranging deer and rabbits surrounding Minnesota dairy herds. Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research, 69:32-38.
• Fossler CP, Wells SJ, et al. 2005. Cattle and environmental sample-level factors associated with presence of Salmonella in a multi-state study of conventional and organic dairy farms. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 67:39-53.
• Fossler CP, Wells SJ, et al. 2005. Herd-level factors associated with isolation of Salmonella in a multi-state study of conventional and organic dairy farms I. Salmonella shedding in cows. Preventive Veterinary Medicine Sep 12;70(3-4):257-277.
• Fossler CP, Wells SJ, et al. 2005. Herd-level factors associated with isolation of Salmonella in a multi-state study of conventional and organic dairy farms II. Salmonella shedding in calves. Preventive Veterinary Medicine Sep 12;70(3-4):279-291.
• Raizman E, Wells SJ, et al. 2006. Characterization of Minnesota dairy herds participating in a Johne's Disease Control Program and Evaluation of the Program Risk Assessment Tool . Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 75(1-2):22-33.

Also, for a listing of recent publications, refer to PubMed, a service provided by the National Library of Medicine.

Editorial Board

• Preventive Veterinary Medicine

Current Funding

• JDIP: Johne's disease Integrated Program in research, education, and extension, USDA-CSREES NRICGP Integrated – Animal and Plant Biosecurity, 2004-2007 .
• Evaluation of Critical Control Points in Youngstock and Adult Dairy Cow Management to Reduce Transmission of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis , USDA-CSREES NRICGP Animal Protection, 2004-2007.
• Evaluation of R egional Variation in the Epidemiology of Johne's Disease in Cattle Dense Regions in the Americas (US, Uruguay, Bolivia). USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service, 2005-2006.
• Johne's disease control education and development initiative, Minnesota Board of Animal Health , 2006-2007.

Honors and Awards

Current Students

• Natalia Cernacchiaro , MS candidate.
• Patrick Pithua, PhD candidate.
• Cecile Fernouillet, MPH candidate.
• Tim Goldsmith, MPH candidate.
• Diane Murphy Collette, DVM-MPH candidate.
• Noel Plaetz, DVM-MPH candidate.