Brett Sponseller has been named as the new chair of the Department of Veterinary Science and director of the Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky. Sponseller starts Aug. 1.
Sponseller’s wife, Beatrice, also an equine veterinarian, will be joining the faculty to support the Equine Science and Management undergraduate degree program. She will also oversee the clinical care and welfare of UK’s equine research and teaching herds.
The Sponsellers have been deeply rooted in the equine industry spanning several decades. The duo have been equine clinicians and researchers for nearly 30 years and Thoroughbred breeders for more than 20 years.
Sponseller earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University, completed an internship in private practice with Equine Medical Associates in Edmond, Oklahoma, and completed a residency in large animal internal medicine with an equine emphasis from the University of California, Davis. He earned his doctorate in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from Iowa State University.
Sponseller was an inaugural founder of the Equine Internal Medicine Service at ISU in 2003. Since, he has also maintained an extramurally funded research focus in equine infectious diseases. including those caused by Rhodococcus equi, equine infectious anemia virus, equine herpesvirus-1 and Clostridioides difficile.
His teaching portfolio includes didactic equine internal medicine, veterinary virology with graduate and professional students and equine internal medicine as a clinical rotation. Sponseller has mentored several residents who presently specialize in equine medicine in the Central Kentucky area.
