Retired OVC Professor Dr. Jan Sargeant named Professor Emerita by the University of Guelph

Dr. Jan Sargeant, an epidemiologist and food safety expert, has been named University Professor Emerita by the University of Guelph (U of G).   

Sargeant, a former professor in the Ontario Veterinary College’s (OVC) Department of Population Medicine, has been recognized as a global leader of systematic reviews and of research reporting guidelines in animal health, animal welfare and food safety. Her work focuses on zoonoses, diseases transmitted from animals to people, and microbial food safety, with particular interest in enhancing accessible and transparent animal research results, improving quality of information for therapeutic decision-making as well as data use in risk assessment and disease modelling. 

Recently, Sargeant used PEW foundation research funding to conduct substantial knowledge synthesis work on antimicrobial use in farm animals sufficient to fill an entire issue of Animal Health Research Reviews. She has led concerted collaborative efforts to improve publication quality across a breadth of peer-reviewed journals instituting reporting checklist requirements for many including  PetSORT, STROBE-VET, and REFLECT.  

Sargeant was the inaugural director of the Center for Public Health and Zoonoses (CPHAZ) at the University of Guelph and is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.  

A DVM, MSc and PhD graduate from U of G, she has over 260 peer-reviewed publications, 189 abstracts/proceedings, 45 invited presentations and four book chapters during her academic career, with a Google Scholar h-index of 57.  She has acquired over seven million dollars in research funding as PI or co-PI. 

Sargeant has advised three postdoctoral fellows, 10 PhD’s and 23 MSc’s to completion.  Recently, Sargeant was inducted as an inaugural Fellow of the Congress of Research Workers in Animal Diseases.  

Sargeant will be recognized at the Ontario Veterinary College Convocation ceremony on June 16, 2023 at 4:30 PM. Review the full list of retired faculty members who will be honored this year on the University of Guelph website and watch the ceremony online.