Institute Director and Associates
Institute Director
Eric Davis, DVM, MS, DACVS, DACVIM
Dr. Eric Davis, now the Director since July 2020, has been the Associate Veterinarian of the International Animal Welfare Training Institute since its inception. He has lead the cause of animal welfare to underserved communities for many years.
Dr. Davis is board-certified in veterinary surgery and internal medicine. He is an experienced large animal clinician, having served on the staff of the veterinary schools at Iowa State University, Purdue University, and the University of Tennessee. After founding Rural Area Veterinary Services (RAVS), he directed this program for the Humane Society of the United States for 10 years. During this time, he was deployed to Louisiana during hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and to Sri Lanka following the 2004 Tsunami.
Dr. Davis has provided leadership and patient care by organizing emergency animal sheltering. Dr. Davis has been the director of Rural Veterinary Experience Teaching and Service (R-VETS), volunteering in underserved communities of the western United States, Mexico and Nicaragua while mentoring veterinary students interested in rural practice. Dr. Davis leads research projects to improve the welfare of donkeys.
Dr. Davis is the founder of the Donkey Welfare Symposium, an event that brings together donkey practitioners, donkey owners, scientists, conservationists and representatives of charities for donkeys and working equids. The event occurs yearly since 2013.
Associates
Lais Costa, MV, MS, PhD, DACVIM, DABVP
Dr. Costa works at the UC Davis One Health Institute, School of Veterinary Medicine, as coordinator of the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team and associate veterinarian of the International Animal Welfare Teaching Institute. Dr. Costa is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) in Large Animal Internal Medicine and a Diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP) in Equine Practice. She received her veterinary degree from São Paulo State University - Botucatu, Brazil. She holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Kentucky, working at the Maxwell Gluck Equine Research Center in Lexington, KY and a PhD in respiratory immunopathology from the School of Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University. She has worked as Clinical Instructor in Equine Internal Medicine at Louisiana State University, University of Georgia, and Mississippi State University. She was an Assistant Professor at Tufts University, Adjunct Professor at Mississippi State University and Associate Veterinarian at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at University of California – Davis. She has also worked as Private Equine Medicine Consultant as she has held veterinary licenses in several US states and has been Federally Accredited since 1998.
Jerry Gillespie, BS, DVM, PhD
Dr Gillespie received his DVM from Oklahoma State University and his PhD in Comparative Pathology from UC Davis. He worked briefly in private practice before joining the faculty at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine where he served as Professor of Clinical Sciences, Professor and co-Chair of the Department of Physiological Sciences, and Associate Dean of Student Services. More recently, he served UC Davis as the Director of the Western Institute of Food Safety and Security. He was a Kansas State University where he headed-up the Veterinary Teaching Hospital and the Department of Clinical Sciences. At USDA and HHS, he served as the Executive Director of the Joint Institute for Food Safety Research. His honors include the UC Davis Alumni Achievement Award, Faculty Achievement Award from the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians, President of the Association of Equine Sports Medicine and the Comparative Respiratory Society, and Fulbright-Hayes Award. Dr Gillespie has authored over 100 peer reviewed articles including recent works focused on food biosecurity.