Brief Biography

Dr. Leighton is the Executive Director of the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre (CCWHC), a science centre for wildlife disease surveillance, management, research, and teaching among Canada’s five veterinary colleges, governments and non-government organizations, and a Collaborating Centre of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). He received an AB degree from Cornell University in 1970 and a DVM from the University of Saskatchewan in 1979, after which he did postgraduate study in veterinary pathology at Cornell University leading to a PhD and certification by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists in 1984. Dr. Leighton joined the faculty of the Department of Veterinary Pathology at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan in 1984 and was Department Head from 1988–1999. He became the full-time Executive Director of the CCWHC in 2002. His research and publications have included pathology and epidemiology of noninfectious and infectious diseases of wild animals, disease surveillance, disease management, interpretation of science to the general public, and advocacy for more engagement by the veterinary profession in important global concerns.