About Us

Meet our board and find out what we’re all about!

Tangela Williams-Hill, DVM

President

Dr. Williams–Hill's Bio

Tangela M. Williams-Hill received her DVM from Tuskegee University in 2001. Dr. Williams–Hill was a research scholar at the University of Georgia and the University of Maryland at College Park. She worked as a lab researcher in chemistry until attending Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, AL. She practiced in Collingswood, NJ for six years in small animal medicine and exotic medicine. She is an active member of the North Jersey and South Jersey VMA, as well as an AAHA member. She is also active in community programs that help promote and educate students from low income areas about veterinary medicine. Dr. Williams-Hill was a board member on the Patient Family Advisory Committee and a NICU volunteer at a local hospital in New Jersey from 2013 to 2017. Dr. Williams-Hill joined Idexx Laboratories in April 2015 as the Philadelphia Professional Services Veterinarian, serving the greater Philadelphia region and conducted CE seminars and communication training. She presently sits as a board member of AVMA-supported Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative and is a member of Idexx Global Diversity and Inclusion Council.

Danielle Adney, PhD

President-Elect

Dr. Adney's Bio

Dr. Adney received her PhD from Colorado State University (CSU) in 2016, where she is currently a member of the veterinary class of 2020. Her PhD research investigated the role of dromedary camels in the transmission cycle of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MER-CoV).

Upon completion of her DVM, Dr. Adney will integrate her scientific and veterinary expertise to continue researching the role of reservoir hosts in the spillover of emerging infectious diseases.

Dr. Adney is passionate about promoting women and minorities in science. She is one of the founding members of CSU’s Women in Science Career Issues Group, has helped organize two symposiums focused on the topic, and serves as the student director of the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative. Furthermore, Dr. Adney believes science communication within the scientific community and amongst the general population is critical to the advancement of science. She is a founding member of Science on Tap, Fort Collins, a monthly event focused on open and informal discussion between scientists and the public.

Rosita

Rosita Santos

Treasurer

Rosita's Bio
Rosita Faye Barlow Chamorro, was born and raised on the island of Guam. In 2002, she moved to Seattle to attend school at Seattle University focusing on a business degree with a focus in Finance. After college, she landed a job at Gravity Payments and has been there for the past 16 years. Rosita’s career evolution started with individual contributor roles in underwriting, accounting, and finance until she found alignment with a management position and a passion for building a strong community within an organization. In 2013, she made an organizational switch to working with and overseeing sales reps which gave her an opportunity to start connecting to the veterinary profession. This connection led to an opportunity for Rosita to be a veterinary community owner within Gravity Payments advocating for the advancement and investment in technology to support independent practices and hospitals. Since then, she’s attended conferences and educational events, and networked with veterinarians in pursuit of deepening her understanding of the challenges individuals face in practicing veterinary medicine daily.

When Gravity announced it would raise the minimum wage to $70K, Rosita became involved on a national level advocating for other companies to do the same by sharing her story. She interviewed for numerous print articles, interviewed on the Work Life podcast by Adam Grant, and appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Rosita has also written a piece for the Women in Leadership series calling out that gender bias continues to be a prevalent disease in the workplace and bringing authenticity in our voice to challenge the status quo is one of the ways to clean up our environments. She now lives in Federal Way, Washington spending quality time with her family and friends.

Gary Marshall, DVM

Board Member
Dr. Marshall's Bio
Dr. Gary Marshall is a graduate of the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Marshall founded Island Cats Veterinary Hospital, the first feline-exclusive practice on Mercer Island, Washington in 1996. His special areas of interest are soft tissue surgery and feline geriatrics; prolonging and enhancing the senior years of feline patients.

With his position as Adjunct Professor for Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, there are several veterinary students receiving part of their clinical training at Island Cats.

Dr. Marshall is a Past-President of the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association and still serves on the Board of Directors. He also has previously served as Vice-Chairman of the American Veterinary Medical Foundation and currently serves as one of two representatives from Washington State in the House of Delegates for the American Veterinary Medical Association.

He is proud that his last act as WSVMA President was to propose and promote that Washington be the first State VMA to sign on in support of the Wake Up Vet Med Call to Action by the Multicultural Veterinary Medicine Association.

Late in 2020, he was appointed to the Advisory Group of the Commission for a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Veterinary Profession. This is a joint venture of the AVMA and AAVMC.

Dr. Marshall is also working with the Washington State University Center for Undergraduate Education (Pre-Veterinary Medicine) to establish a DEI forum with a panel of current veterinary students.

Outside of this veterinary medicine, Dr. Marshall enjoys getting to all the corners of the Pacific Northwest to work on honing his landscape photography skills, and during the winter he participates in a local curling league.

Dr. Marshall is married and has two grown children. He and his wife share their home with their cat named Millicent Cloudberry (Millie), senior Bassett-Retriever cross named Fred, and during pandemics, the Island Cats clinic cat named Ella.

Makenzie Peterson, DSW, MSc

Board Member

Makenzie's Bio

As a member of their senior program leadership team, Dr. Makenzie Peterson serves as the Director for Wellbeing at the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC). She works to advance AAVMC’s strategic goal of fostering a culture of wellbeing throughout academic veterinary medicine by promoting preventative, systems-based initiatives that positively impact people’s lives. Dr. Peterson provides subject-matter expertise on evidence-based health and wellbeing practices, as well as how organizations can improve overall wellbeing by addressing the root causes of distress. She speaks on a variety of wellbeing-related topics across the profession to drive positive change.

In Dr. Peterson’s current role, she leads efforts to improve the wellbeing of students, interns, residents, staff, and faculty at our member institutions by conducting national research on mental health and wellbeing and providing organizational recommendations and consultation for program development and implementation. She also provides oversight for AAVMC’s Academic Veterinary Wellbeing Professionals (AVWP) group. Beyond her role in academic veterinary medicine, Dr. Peterson also established the Wellbeing Coalition group for the Federation of the Allied Schools of the Health Professions (FASHP) to encourage cross-disciplinary efforts and resource sharing to collectively support the wellbeing of all the health professions.

A few of Dr. Peterson’s previous roles included being a health specialist for a joint MIT/Harvard-sponsored start-up located in Harvard Business School’s Innovation Lab focused on educating college students on health topics, and at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine as their first Wellbeing Program Director creating community wellbeing initiatives for students, staff, and faculty. She served on the Wellbeing Committee for the New York State Veterinary Medical Society and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative.

Born and raised in Alaska, Dr. Peterson completed her master’s degree from the University of Utah in Health Promotion & Health Education and her Doctorate of Social Work from the University of Southern California. When she’s not working to translate wellbeing research into practice, Dr. Peterson can be found enjoying time with her family and her wolfdog Odin, and fixing up her circa 1845 home in central New York (a never-ending endeavor).

Eva

Eva Evans, DVM, MBA

Board Member

Eva's Bio
Dr. Eva Evans attended The University of Tennessee and graduated from the College of Veterinary Medicine in 2012 and received her MBA from The University of Maryland in 2015. Dr. Evans spent two years in Las Vegas, Nevada where she worked at a small animal private practice. In 2014, Dr. Evans moved back to Nashville, Tennessee and focused on Emergency medicine at an after-hours practice. She worked as a relief veterinarian from 2015-2017 while building her new practice, and in 2017 opened City Pets Animal Care in downtown Nashville,
TN. In addition to private practice, Dr. Evans is a contributing author for Pets Best Insurance. She writes educational articles on everything from pet travel tips to choosing the best diet for your pet.

She served on the AVMA Political Action Committee (PAC) Board from 2013-2019, including as Chairwoman for two years.

Dr. Evans also serves on the Scholarship and Awards Committee with the AVMF evaluating scholarship applications from veterinary students. She enjoys interacting with students and mentoring.

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Mila Christensen, MS, DVM, DACLAM

Board Member

Mila's Bio
Mila is a boarded laboratory animal veterinarian who works and lives in San Diego, CA. She graduated from Cornell Vet School in 2014 and completed a residency at GlaxoSmithKline in 2016. Mila has a strong interest in mentoring and supporting other women, as well as strengthening the leadership skills of herself and her colleagues. Mila is active in the veterinary community through various laboratory animal organizations and the AVMA.
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Kim Barteau, RVT

Board Member

Kim's Bio
Kim Barteau is a registered veterinary technician living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has been working in the veterinary field since 2009 first as a veterinary assistant. She graduated with her associates in veterinary technology in 2014 and received her certification the same year. Spending most of her career in emergency and specialty medicine she is passionate about disease pathology and critical care. Her passions also include equality, inclusion, and mental health awareness. When not in the workplace she is a girl scout leader and mom. She enjoys spending quality time with her family and exploring different hobbies.
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Molly Ellis, RVT, FFCP, CFVP, PVFR

Instructor

Molly's Bio

Molly Ellis, RVT, FFCP (Elite), CFVP has been a registered veterinary technician in Indiana since 2015. After graduating from Harrison College in 2012, she worked as a veterinary assistant in general practice for three years. She transitioned to emergency and critical care, her lifelong passion in 2015. After moving away and back, she began working at the Vet Tech Institute. While there she had the opportunity to work for VCA Advanced Veterinary Care Center as an Emergency Department Supervisor. She maintains this role while also providing lectures to the community and working as a certified RECOVER CPR Instructor. She is also Fear Free Certified at the Elite level, a Certified Cat Friendly Veterinary Professional and a Prehospital Veterinary First Responder Instructor.

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Dr. Kristen Turner

Board Member

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Dr. Kimberly Simmons

Board Member

Kimberly's Bio

Dr. Kimberly Cunningham Simmons started her long career in Animal Health as a companion animal veterinarian in private practice in Georgia upon graduation from the Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine. She then moved on to corporate veterinary practice, as Senior Clinician with PetSmart Veterinary Services, then as Chief of Staff with Banfield, the Pet Hospital. After realizing that she wanted more exposure to the Animal Health Industry, she joined Novartis Animal Health as a Professional Services Veterinarian for the companion animal commercial business, eventually moving into the area of Regulatory Affairs. With Novartis, Kimberly had the honor of working and living in Europe, having leadership/global roles in the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Based on her love of working in and with diverse cultures around the world, Kimberly has been in several global leadership roles for many major Animal Health companies, including Merial Animal Health, IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., and most recently as VP Global Regulatory Affairs with Elanco Animal Health. In 2020, Kimberly decided to start her own Regulatory consulting business, Simmons Consulting Group, LLC supporting the Animal Health and Pharma industries on regulatory strategy, innovation, product stewardship, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. She is also Director of Regulatory Affairs with Clinglobal and an AVMA/AAVMC Advisory Group member for the Commission for a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Veterinary Profession. .  Kimberly currently resides in Indiana with her husband, twin teenagers and a host of family pets, including an English Springer Spaniel, an American Shorthair, a guinea pig, and a turtle.

Interested in getting involved with WVLDI?

There may be many areas available: board service, social media contribution, student outreach, speakers bureau, fundraisers, sponsorships, and mentorships.

So if you have an interest in getting involved with WVLDI, please contact us using our form, and let us know what you are interested in and what immediate skills you can bring to the table!