Catherine (Katie) Standage
Katie graduated from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2022 with BSc (Hons) in Psychology. Katie’s honours thesis investigated whether perceived lack of social support was a moderator for Covid-19 pandemic stress and alcohol use, while tapping into possible gender associations along this pathway. Katie returned to school after raising two daughters joining them in classes at Dalhousie in 2019! Katie has had careers in sales and piano technology as well as working as an MOA at a busy family practice in Spryfield.
Katie is completing her Doctor of Psychology at UPEI and her dissertation is under the supervision of Drs. Caroline Ritter and Philip Smith. Her dissertation is a joint project between the PsyD program and Atlantic Veterinary College. Katie is studying whether mentorship plays a role in the mental health of newly graduated veterinarians across Canada with a hope that this study will find resiliency factors in the mentoring relationship to prevent burnout, and depression as well as promote professional stability and retainment.
Katie is an avid swimmer and song writer who plays bass guitar and is happy to play piano and guitar badly for those who don’t mind.
Tunmise Faith Ehigbor
Faith was born in Lagos State, Nigeria, and grew up on his parents’ poultry farm. He completed his BSc in 2021 from the Department of Animal Physiology, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria, graduating with a first-class degree. In 2022, Faith won the prestigious Arrell Food Institute Scholarship at the University of Guelph, where he studied Poultry Behaviour and Welfare for his MSc, which he completed in 2024.
Faith has started a Master of Veterinary Medicine Program in the Department of Health Management at the University of Prince Edward Island and intends to transition into a PhD. He is being supervised by Dr. Caroline Ritter and Dr. Katy Proudfoot (co-advisor).
Faith’s research will be focused on a participatory initiative to enhance antimicrobial stewardship on Canadian dairy farms. As a One Health problem, antimicrobial use affects not just the health and welfare of animals, but also humans and our shared environment. Faith believes that collaborative research with dairy farmers at the forefront of current and future antimicrobial use changes will ensure a more sustainable and safe food system. In line with his background and passion for animal welfare, he also hopes to develop standard operating procedures for antimicrobial use to promote animal welfare. In his free time, Faith enjoys watching and playing soccer.
Aiman Khattak
All our dreams can come true; if we have the courage to pursue them!
Aiman Khattak is currently following her passion and striving towards her ultimate dream of earning a PhD in Health Management at Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC). Supervised by Dr. Caroline Ritter and Dr. Philip Smith (co-supervisor), Aiman is studying veterinary mental health. Aiman’s current research represents an ideal blend of psychology and the dynamics of the veterinarian-animal and veterinarian-client relationship and its effects on the veterinarian mental health.
Aiman is originally from Pakistan, where she studied her Bachelors, Masters, and MPhil in Applied Psychology from National Institute of Psychology (NIP), Quaid-i-Azam University. She has moved to Charlottetown with her husband to pursue her dream. Psychology has always been a core passion for Aiman, driving her academic and personal interests. In her academic career, Aiman explored various research areas, including happiness and well-being, hoarding behaviors, and environmental psychology.
Alongside her deep passion for psychology, Aiman has always been a devoted animal lover, cats as her constant companions. Beyond her interest in veterinary mental health, Aiman is deeply enthusiastic about environmental psychology, particularly in exploring how various environments impact mental health. As a passionate nature enthusiast, she is keen on investigating the therapeutic effects of both natural and designed environments on individuals’ well-being.
Megan Ross
Megan graduated from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in May 2020 with a BcS in Applied Animal Biology. Megan has an in-depth horse background as an avid eventing and dressage rider, trainer, and instructor as well as experience with horse behavioural research. As part of her studies at UBC, Megan worked for an Equine Veterinary Clinic where she co-authored a paper published in AAEP (2019) regarding the enhancement of horse welfare during common vet procedures. Megan later completed a research methods course and directed Studies under the guidance of Dr. Marina Von Keyserlingk and Dr. Dan Weary. In these courses, Megan worked with Dr. Anne Bondi identifying the relationship between horse jumping mechanics and performance.
Megan is currently in a Master of Veterinary Science Program at the University of Prince Edward Island identifying common horse housing practices and the owners’ perceptions around these management practices. She recognizes that the barrier between evidence-based research and practice will inhibit new knowledge making its way into horse communities. She believes research such as this will identify and break down certain barriers to knowledge, enhance communication between researchers and horse owners leading to enhancement of horse welfare.
Emily Morabito
Emily Morabito is originally from Stony Brook, New York. She has followed her passion for human and animal welfare throughout her career, leading to her current PhD position at the Atlantic Veterinary College. Emily’s academic career began at the University of Kentucky, where she first discovered her passion for research. She was lucky enough to obtain a funded project of her own, researching tail docking and shaving in dairy cows. This project connected her to the University of Calgary, where she completed her master’s degree at the College of Veterinary Medicine. Emily’s project at the University of Calgary was a qualitative and quantitative assessment of cow comfort in dairy facilities in Alberta, Canada.
Emily’s current PhD project is the perfect marriage of all her passions. Supervised by Dr. Caroline Ritter and Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton , Emily is studying veterinary mental health. Veterinarians have increased risk of mental illness (i.e. anxiety, depression, burnout) and suicide. The current research shows that early career veterinarians are most at risk, so this project will follow veterinary students across Canada through their final years of vet school into their first few years of their career. Emily is both grateful and excited to be part of OneHealth, working on such an important project.
Linda Dorrestein
Linda Dorrestein completed her veterinary education at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). Here she expanded her view on the veterinary field by designing her own minor ‘Governance and Policy’. This minor included internships at the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (Rome, Italy) and St Anna Advies, a veterinary communication and consultancy agency (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). After graduating as a DVM in Companion Animal Medicine (in 2015), Linda worked in various veterinary clinics before starting her PhD at UCVM in 2019.
‘What makes a good veterinarian, a great veterinarian?’ Is the question that motivates her, and Linda believes communication to be a major part of the answer. In her PhD research she focusses on characteristics of communication between dairy veterinarians and farmers and whether communication training in veterinarians can aid in improving farmer satisfaction and herd health. Furthermore, Linda is interested in mental health in the veterinary profession, leadership and entrepreneurship. Caroline is co-supervising Linda together with Dr. Herman Barkema (primary supervisor).
Due to the COVID situation she currently lives in her ‘urban jungle’ in The Netherlands, with her partner and cat. She enjoys running, biking (being Dutch, she owns 3 bikes), snowboarding and performing at festivals with her improv theatre group.
Chaya Seale
Chaya graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2020 with BSc (Hons) in Psychology. Chaya’s honours thesis was on emotion perception across the lifespan. She then worked for the IWK Health Centre in the Centre for Research in Family Health before coming to PEI. Chaya is completing her Doctor of Psychology at UPEI and her dissertation is under the supervision of Drs. Caroline Ritter and Yoshi Takano.
Chaya is part of a larger project that broadly aims to develop strategies for veterinary students and veterinarians to improve their mental health and success in the profession. Her dissertation reflects upon stories of how practicing veterinarians have overcome challenges, and even flourished, within the field. She is using her background in psychology to inform her research.
Chaya grew up with chickens, ducks, sheep, and other animals. She currently lives in Charlottetown with her partner and their two cats, Stevie and Sully. Outside of veterinarians’ mental health, Chaya’s interests are in geropsychology and perinatal mental health.