Director Center for Veterinary Social Work University of Tennessee Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Social Work, Clinical Associate Professor

Elizabeth B. Strand, Ph.D LCSW is the All Creatures Great and Small Endowed Clinical Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Veterinary Social Work (CVSW) at the University of Tennessee Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Social Work. Dr. Strand is a licensed clinical social worker, Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) practitioner, a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher, a conflict resolution and peacebuilding course instructor, and a student and practitioner of Interpersonal Neurobiology. Dr. Strand has a special interest in adaptive, transdisciplinary, and participatory (APT) research methodologies as they apply to collaborative responses to wicked problems- especially in the food system. Her convergent research efforts have focused on: a) the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) policy impacts on producers’ experiences and behavior with antimicrobials in dairy cattle, b) a USDA IDEAS-funded grant dedicated to building public trust in the dairy industry c) protecting the human psychological impact of mass depopulation of swine and other animals, d) co-creating a digital peer-based suicide prevention program in the veterinary community, and e) a multiyear mental health and wellbeing benchmarking research study in the veterinary field. Her three-fold professional mission is to: 1) support the humane treatment of people and animals, 2) attend to mindfulness in all settings and situations, and 3) make every step one-directed towards building individual and collective peace.