Congratulations to Dr. Linda Saif for being selected as the 2023 ACVM Distinguished Veterinary Microbiologist Award recipient!
Dr. Saif is a Distinguished University Professor in the Center for Food Animal Health and Veterinary Preventive Medicine. She has had a long and distinguished career, publishing over 400 peer-review scientific journal articles, exceeding 17 million dollars of funded extramural support, and having mentored many successful graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Her accomplishments cannot be described any better than her nominator, Dr. Don Reynolds. Part of his nomination letter is provided below:
“Unfortunately, the nomination letter for this award is limited to one page, which does not seem adequate to document the accomplishments of Dr. Saif. She was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2003, US Academy of Microbiology in 2004 and to the US National Academy of Inventors in 2016. She is recognized as one of the premier experts in the world on swine diseases and as a global expert on coronaviruses. In 2003 she received an Honorary Doctorate from Ghent University in Belgium. In 2009 she was elected to the Argentine National Academy of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious international Wolf Prize in Agriculture. In 2003, she served as the World Health Organization’s advisor on SARS and her laboratory was recognized as an International Reference Laboratory for Animal Coronaviruses. She was an expert consultant on MERS coronaviruses in animals for the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Agriculture from 2014-2018. More recently, she participated as a US National Academy of Science (NAS) Representative, China-U.S. Workshop on the Challenges of Emerging Infections, Laboratory Safety and Global Health Security, Co-sponsored by US NAS and Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). I know of no person who is more deserving of the ACVM Distinguished Veterinary Microbiologist Award than Dr. Linda J. Saif.”