Jessica McArt named dean of College of Veterinary Medicine

Dr. Jessica McArt, DVM '07, Ph.D. '13, has been named the Austin O. Hooey Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), effective July 15. Her appointment was approved May 20 by the Cornell Board of Trustees' Executive Committee and ratified June 2 by the State University of New York's Board of Trustees.

McArt, professor of ambulatory and production medicine and chair of the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences in CVM, will succeed Dr. Lorin Warnick, Ph.D. '94. He has served as dean since 2016, following a year as interim dean, and plans to return to research and teaching at Cornell.

"Jessica is the right person to lead our world-class College of Veterinary Medicine into the future as we face new opportunities and challenges," said Provost Kavita Bala. "I am deeply grateful to Lorin for his outstanding leadership, and I look forward to working with Jessica to continue to grow CVM's research, teaching and outreach mission. She has the commitment and expertise to enhance the college's reputation as one of the premier veterinary programs in the world."

As dean, McArt plans to advance initiatives that combine CVM's disciplines with other entities at Cornell to drive discovery, enhance programs that meet community and public health needs, and support students' educational interests, among other goals.

"I am very passionate about the College of Veterinary Medicine and I'm excited to work with faculty, staff and students to advance the opportunities this college has to offer, in collaboration with colleagues across Cornell and beyond," McArt said. "Dean Warnick accomplished a great deal during his tenure and I'm very excited to build upon the solid foundation he has left us."

McArt joined Cornell in 2014 as assistant professor of ambulatory and production medicine. She served as section chief in the Ambulatory and Production Medicine Clinic from 2017-22 and as a visiting scientist with the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action at Agriculture Victoria, a government institution in Bundoora, Australia, from 2023-24.

In her role as dean, McArt will continue several recent initiatives from the CVM's strategic plan, while working with the college community to develop a shared vision and strategic priorities. A self-described "community-minded leader," McArt will seek to promote collaborative and community-engaged programs. She plans to build on efforts created during Warnick's tenure and through major philanthropic investments, such as the Center for Veterinary Business and Entrepreneurship, a partnership with the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business; Cornell Equine; the Cornell Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center; the Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health; and the Duffield Institute for Animal Behavior - initiatives that bring together expertise to advance discovery, education and service.

Generally speaking, academia has long nurtured individual researchers and programs that push discovery forward, McArt said, adding that this model has worked well. "At the same time, we have many experts approaching questions from different angles, and when they collaborate, they can bring that unique expertise together to tackle challenges that no single investigator could individually address," she said.

To this end, McArt said she would like to create opportunities for faculty and students to collaborate, such as informal gatherings and seed funding to bridge academic silos and support interdisciplinary discovery.

McArt is also invested in promoting programs that understand the needs of a community so that research groups might address them. She pointed to Maddie's Shelter & Community Medicine as an example of this model, which offers care options tailored to clients' and patients' unique circumstances. The program recently conducted a large survey of Tompkins County to assess public access to veterinary care and understand some of the barriers to access.

In terms of education, McArt envisions promoting avenues for students to combine interests as they pursue their degrees. For example, alongside veterinary training, the college can provide business and leadership education to prepare them to start a business or buy into a practice. "We can enable students to create their own niche within veterinary medicine and advance leadership in multiple directions," she said.

Student debt will be one of the big challenges that McArt anticipates addressing during her tenure. "It's a significant concern across the country," McArt said. "We are looking for ways to reduce that burden so graduates can pursue the careers they are most passionate about, rather than choosing positions primarily to pay down debt."

Finally, AI creates opportunities for efficiencies that the hospital is already incorporating, McArt said, and she plans to encourage further adoption. With owner permission, clinical teams are using AI to record appointments and provide preliminary notes, saving veterinarians' time. In addition, Cornell veterinary radiologists are exploring AI systems to help interpret radiographs, and McArt said it will be important for students to understand how to use these evolving technologies appropriately in practice.

"From a student-learning perspective, it's imperative that we teach them how to use AI effectively while ensuring they develop strong clinical reasoning, sound judgment and problem-solving skills, which are all things AI cannot replace," she said.

McArt is trained as a dairy veterinarian and epidemiologist, with a focus on the identification, epidemiology and economics of diseases in dairy cows that occur before, during and after giving birth.

Prior to joining Cornell, she was assistant professor of livestock medicine and population health at Colorado State University, Fort Collins.

McArt received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College (1999) and a DVM and a doctorate in comparative biomedical sciences from Cornell. She is a diplomate in the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (Dairy Practice).