UF veterinary college names chair for newest department

The UF College of Veterinary Medicine has named Subhashinie Kariyawasam, B.V.Sc., Ph.D., chair of the department of comparative, diagnostic and population medicine.

Kariyawasam currently serves as a clinical professor in the department of veterinary and biomedical science and as microbiology section head of the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, where she has been a member of the faculty since 2008. Prior to that, she had faculty appointments at Iowa State University and at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

Kariyawasam will begin her new role at UF on Sept. 1.

Kariyawasam received her B.V.Sc. degree from the University of Peradeniya in 1992 and her Ph.D. in veterinary infectious diseases in 2002 from the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Canada.

She has attained board certification in three separate specialty colleges: the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists, with specialties in bacteriology/mycology and immunology; the American College of Poultry Veterinarians; and the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine. In addition, she is board eligible for the American Board of Medical Microbiology.

At the national level, Kariyawasam has been actively engaged over the past 10 years in a number of important committees with the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists, the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians and the American Association of Avian Pathologists.

Formed last year, the department is the academic home for faculty members from a variety of different disciplines. It has been led on an interim basis since its formation by Michael Schaer, D.V.M., a professor emeritus of small animal medicine at UF. The University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine is supported through funding from UF Health and the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.