Lorin Warnick to end term as veterinary college dean

Dr. Lorin D. Warnick, Ph.D. '94, the Austin O. Hooey Dean of Veterinary Medicine, has announced he will step down following the completion of his second term on June 30, 2026.

Provost Kavita Bala has started a search for Warnick's successor. Andrew Karolyi, the Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, and Gary Koretzky, interim vice provost for research, are chairing the search committee.

"Lorin has been an outstanding leader over his tenure at the College of Veterinary Medicine," Bala said. "He played a vital role in helping us successfully navigate the university's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in maintaining the college's reputation as one of the premier veterinary programs in the world."

Warnick joined Cornell's faculty in 1996. He was appointed dean in 2016 after serving as interim dean when then-dean Michael I. Kotlikoff was named provost in 2015. Warnick's appointment was renewed for a second term in 2020.

"It's been a privilege and a great opportunity to represent and serve a community like we have at the College of Veterinary Medicine," Warnick said. "I'm extremely proud of the accomplishments of this college and thankful for its dedication to education, clinical and diagnostic programs and the research that's been done to serve the public."

During his tenure as dean, the college has adapted to structural changes to the veterinary profession, such as increased consolidation of clinics with large companies and a shortage of veterinarians to serve rural areas and lower-income pet owners, Warnick said.

"So that's a different kind of business environment," he said. "There's great demand for veterinarians, so practices have to be very cognizant of how to work efficiently to meet the service demands and opportunities."

To meet these challenges, Warnick and colleagues at CVM collaborated with the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business to launch the Center for Veterinary Business and Entrepreneurship(CVBE) in 2019. The center helps prepare students for future changes to the veterinary profession by promoting research, education and outreach activities that aim to improve the business side of veterinary medicine.

In 2021, the college launched a new Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, its first new department in more than 20 years. The department aims to address pressing global challenges, including the lack of healthy food systems, emerging health threats and biodiversity loss.

Warnick's leadership was instrumental in coordinating with Cayuga Health System to set up the Cornell COVID-19 Testing Laboratory, which became a national model, performing a significant portion of the total human COVID tests in New York state and helping Tompkins County keep its per capita COVID deaths among the lowest in the state.

Since Warnick started as interim dean, the college has raised over $304 million in new gifts and commitments, including for new centers and institutes and a funding renewal for Maddie's Shelter Medicine Program. The new centers and institutes, such as the Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center, the Duffield Institute for Animal Behaviorand the K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health, have internal grant programs which have significantly increased research funding, accelerating discoveries at CVM, Warnick said.

On the education front, the college has led in evaluating how artificial intelligence might apply to veterinary education and clinical work. Warnick oversaw work to advance the college's clinical training programand the two-year Master of Public Health Program, which launched in 2017 and now enrolls 80 students per year. At the same time, the veterinary program has met a target of increasing its class size to 125 students, with 128 enrolled this year.

"One of our main goals was to increase the scholarship funding we have for students," he said. The college is now close to realizing the campaign goal for student scholarships of raising $40 million. "This has significantly helped decrease the debt of our graduates relative to their earning potential in private practice."

Since the launch of the college's strategic plan in 2018, the debt-to-starting salary ratio for doctor of veterinary medicine degree graduates has declined from 2-to-1 to 1-to-1.

With crucial support from New York state, facilities renewals included the continuation and completion in 2017 of the major expansion and renovation of educational spaces, a capital expansion project that remodeled most of the CVM campus and a new equine park barn. The college also secured $19.5 million in funding for an addition to the Animal Health Diagnostic Center.

During Warnick's tenure, and prior to federal funding changes this year, CVM had experienced a 58% growth in National Institutes of Health awards.

At the end of his term as dean, Warnick - a professor of ambulatory and production medicine, who has conducted research on the emergence and dissemination of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in dairy cattle - will return to research and education.

"Personally, serving as dean has been a rewarding growth experience, because every challenge you can successfully navigate, you come out a stronger person for it," Warnick said.

Warnick received a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University (1984), a DVM degree from Colorado State University (1988) and his Ph.D. with an emphasis on epidemiology and statistics from Cornell. He is a diplomate in the American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine.