Dr. Lopez is a Veterinary Specialist for the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Antimicrobial Use and Stewardship (AUS) program and an adjunct Associate Professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Midwestern University. She has actively participated in over 50 veterinary admission interviews, during which she provided admittance recommendations.
Dr. Lopez completed both her undergraduate degree in biology and her veterinary training at Colorado State University. She graduated veterinary school Magna Cum Laude (class rank 2 of 129) with distinction. After graduating from veterinary school at the top of her class, she completed a 1-year rotating internship at the Equine Medical Center of Ocala. She was then accepted into a rigorous combined veterinary medicine residency and doctoral degree program at the University of Georgia. In this program, Dr. Lopez completed her Ph. D. in Comparative Biomedical Sciences, focusing on immunology while simultaneously obtaining specialty board certification in Large Animal Internal Medicine.
Dr. Lopez then accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Midwestern University's College of Veterinary Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. She began working with the CDFA as the team lead for AUS's Surveys and Studies team, which aims to provide veterinarians and producers with evidence-based research to optimize antimicrobial use in food animals to mitigate the growing public health threat of antimicrobial resistance.
Dr. Lopez has taught or coordinated over 15 veterinary courses and clinical rotations, creating two pre-clinical electives and a 4th-year elective clinical rotation. During her tenure at MWU, she also contrived a program to help cultivate competent and confident veterinarians to enter food animal practice by enhancing veterinary student exposure to career prospects in rural food animal veterinary practice. She accomplished this by initiating a collaborative partnership with the Navajo Nation in which MWU provides veterinary care to the reservation's livestock. This program was funded by the USDA's Veterinary Services Grant Program.
As an Adjunct Associate Professor at MWU, Dr. Lopez conducts research to elucidate mechanisms of immune regulation to infectious diseases that impact both people and animals alike. This work is supported by a USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative award for over $450,000. Dr. Lopez routinely serves as a grant review panelist for these awards. Her published works can be found in various peer-reviewed scientific journals, including ImmunoHorizons (commissioned article), Journal of Visualized Experiments, Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology, Frontiers in Immunology, Journal of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Cancer Research.
In addition to scientific publications, Dr. Lopez has routinely been invited to speak at national meetings and has given several continuing education and research presentations at conferences. She has also published on veterinary medicine topics in the journal In Practice and a book chapter in Comparative Veterinary Anatomy: Clinical Applications.
Dr. Lopez's merit is further highlighted by her commitment to influencing the profession and the public through her involvement in committees and outreach efforts. To inspire the future generation of scientists and diversify the veterinary-scientific workforce, Dr. Lopez established the MWU "This Is How We Roll" Committee—a program designed to expose underserved kids due to socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity to careers in veterinary science. Dr. Lopez actively supports the veterinary profession as an executive board member of the American Association of Veterinary Immunologists (AAVI), and the American Association of Immunologists Veterinary Immunology Committee and the Public Communications Committee. She is chair of ACVIM's Specialty Medicine Awareness Committee and is an associate editor of the Veterinary Medicine and Science journal.
Most notably, Dr. Lopez has extensive experience providing student mentorship and guidance. In addition to providing one-on-one research mentorship and laboratory training to veterinary students, she has or is presently serving on the committee for eight Masters of Biomedical Sciences students. As a faculty advisor for countless veterinary students, Dr. Lopez's enthusiasm for mentoring students is demonstrated by her providing these students with guidance in externship selection, crafting letters of intent, and supporting students through letters of recommendation, interview preparation, and contract negotiation. Dr. Lopez has mentored students with a broad range of career interests from small and large animal general or specialty veterinary practice, public health, and industry.
As a coach, Dr. Lopez is thrilled to continue to bolster her passion for working with students. She looks forward to collaborating with students to help them achieve their dreams and join her as her colleague in the veterinary medicine profession.
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