Shane C. BurgessVice President for Agriculture, Life and Veterinary Sciences, and Cooperative ExtensionDean, College of Agriculture and Life SciencesInterim Dean, School of Veterinary MedicineDirector, Arizona Experiment StationA native of New Zealand, Dr. Burgess has worked around the world as a practicing veterinarian and scientist. His areas of expertise include cancer biology, virology, proteomics, immunology and bioinformatics.Since 1997 he has 186 refereed publications, trained 37 graduate students and has received nearly $55 million in competitive funding.The first in his extended family to complete college, Dr. Burgess graduated with distinction as a veterinarian in 1989 from Massey University, New Zealand. He has worked in, and managed veterinary clinical practices in Australia and the UK, including horses, farm animals, pets, wild and zoo animals, and emergency medicine and surgery. He did a radiology residency at Murdoch University in Perth in Western Australia, where he co-founded Perth's first emergency veterinary clinic concurrently. He has managed aquaculture facilities in Scotland. He did his PhD in virology, immunology and cancer biology, conferred by Bristol University medical school, UK while working full time outside of the academy between 1995 and 1998. Dr. Burgess volunteered to work in the UK World Reference Laboratory for Exotic Diseases during the 2001 UK foot and mouth disease crisis, where he led the diagnosis reporting office, for the Office of the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was awarded the Institute for Animal Health Director's Award for Service.In 2002, Dr. Burgess joined Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine as an assistant professor. He was recruited from Mississippi State as a professor, an associate dean of the college and director of the Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology to lead the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in July 2011. Under Dr. Burgess’ leadership, the college has a total budget of more than $120M with over 3,400 students and more than 1,800 employees.
