Adronie Verbrugghe, DVM, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Clinical Studies
Ontario Veterinary College
University of Guelph
Dr. Adronie Verbrugghe graduated as a companion animal veterinarian (DVM) from Ghent University, Belgium in 2005. She completed her PhD focusing on nutritional modulation of carbohydrate metabolism in cats in 2009 and stayed at the same university for two additional years as a postdoctoral fellow. She became board certified for the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition in 2010. In 2011, Dr. Verbrugghe joined the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), University of Guelph, as Royal Canin Veterinary Diets Endowed Chair in Canine and Feline Clinical Nutrition.
Her research interests include companion animal nutrition, the link between nutrition, gut microbiota, health and disease, alteration of metabolic pathways through nutrition and nutritional modulation of inflammation and immunity.
A. Kate Shoveller, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Animal Biosciences
Ontario Agricultural College
University of Guelph
While she was always interested in animals, Dr. Shoveller only discovered her love for nutrition in her senior year of her animal biology degree at the University of Guelph. She subsequently joined the research team of Drs. Ron Ball and Paul Pencharz at the University of Alberta. After her PhD she spent eight months as the Provincial Equine Specialist for Alberta and then returned to Guelph for a post doctoral fellowship in Companion Animal Nutrition. She then spent eight years in the USA working for Procter & Gamble and then Mars. In 2015 she joined the University of Guelph as a faculty member and focuses her research on energy and amino acid metabolism in mono-gastric animals (primarily cats, dogs and pigs). She looks at how diet interacts with the animal and its environment and hopes to lead to companion animals living a longer, healthier life style.
Sarah K. Abood, DVM, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Clinical Studies
Ontario Veterinary College
University of Guelph
Following her veterinary training, Dr. Abood completed a one-year internship in large animal medicine and surgery at the University of Minnesota. Under the guidance of Dr. Tony Buffington at The Ohio State University, she completed a clinical nutrition residency and PhD. From 1994 to 1999 Dr. Abood worked as a nutrition scientist at the Ralston Purina Company, followed by a sixteen year stint at Michigan State University as Assistant Dean for Student Programs and the small animal clinical nutritionist. In June 2018, Dr. Abood joined the Clinical Studies Department at the University of Guelph where her focus is providing nutrition consultations for in-hospital patients, teaching nutrition to veterinary students, and collaborating on nutrition projects with faculty and graduate students. Dr. Abood’s research interests include nutrition support of hospitalized patients, obesity prevention and management, communication skill building, client adherence, alternative diets, veterinary ethics and welfare issues, and business skills and professional development.