UC Davis veterinary students in Knights Landing One Health clinic

Calvin Schwabe Lectureship

Calvin Schwabe Lectureship

This lectureship commemorates the pioneering One Health work of Calvin Schwabe, who helped strengthen the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine's commitment to One Health by ensuring that future veterinarians integrate human, animal and ecosystem protection into their professional work.

"The critical needs of man include the combating of diseases, ensuring enough food, adequate environmental quality, and a society in which humane values prevail,"  Dr. Calvin Schwabe

2023 Calvin Schwabe Lectureship Speaker

Jakob Zinsstag, PhD, DVM

Professor, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute


Past Speakers

2022: Anthony Iton, MD, JD, PhD

Lecturer of Health Policy and Management, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities,The California Endowment


2021: Michael Lairmore, DVM, PhD

Immediate Past Dean & Distinguished Professor, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine


2020: Alice Waters

Founder, The Edible Schoolyard Project
Owner, Chez Panisse

Theme: Future of Food


2019: Christine Kreuder Johnson, VMD, MPVM, PhD

Professor, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis

Theme: Interfaces: One Health at Borders and Margins


2018: Laura Kahn, MPH, MD, PhD 

Physician and Research Scholar, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Health and International Affairs, Princeton University

Theme: One Health Impacts & Solutions of Unsustainable Population Growth

Talk Title: A One Health Perspective on Food Security in the 21st Century


2017: Fernando Milano

Professor and Head of Natural Resources and Sustainability Division, College of Veterinary Medicinem, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires

Theme: Water is Life

Talk Title: Droughts & Floods—Stories from Argentina on One Health Synergies for Health & Land Use Planning


Who is Calvin Schwabe?

Calvin Schwabe portraitKnown as the "father of modern epidemiology," the late Calvin Schwabe had a productive and inspiring career that spanned 52 years. Twenty-five of those years were spent at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine as a professor of epidemiology, where he made significant and broad contributions to the study of zoonotic diseases, production and food animal medicine, and public health.

The term "one medicine" (forerunner of the more current term, One Health) was coined by Dr. Schwabe in his 1984 book, Veterinary Medicine and Human Health, to bring a renewed interest to the synergy that can emerge when health practitioners and scientists collaborate.

The Calvin Schwabe One Health Project honors Dr. Schwabe's prescience in reviving the "one medicine" concept, and continues to advance his vision.