Avian expert awarded Cornell University's highest honor for veterinary college alumni

Photo: Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

Jarra Jagne, DVM

Avian health expert Jarra Jagne, DVM, a professor of practice in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) in Ithaca, New York, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Daniel Elmer Salmon Award for Distinguished Alumni Service. The award is the CVM’s highest alumni honor, and recognizes exceptional service to the veterinary profession, communities, or the college itself.

Jagne’s decades-long career has advanced veterinary public health on both local and global stages—from New York to sub-Saharan Africa—and inspired the next generation of poultry veterinarians through her teaching and mentorship, according to a news release.“Her knowledge of agricultural sustainability and poultry husbandry across cultures is astonishingly deep and diverse,” Karyn Bischoff, DVM. MS, DABVT, former associate professor of practice emerita at Cornell, said in the release. “She is unequaled in her dedication to service.”

Inspired by animals, driven by purpose

A globally recognized leader in poultry health and One Health, Jagne began her veterinary journey in The Gambia, where she grew up spending summers in rural areas with her father. There, she became fascinated by livestock and witnessed a cat undergoing surgery during a school field trip. “From then on, all I could talk about was being a veterinary doctor,” she recalled in the release.

Undeterred by social pressure to pursue human medicine, Jagne followed her dream and enrolled at Cornell—thanks in part to a government scholarship from The Gambia. Despite the challenges of being one of only a few minority students and coping with the loss of her mother, she credits Cornell’s academic rigor and mentorship for laying the foundation of her career.

During her third year of veterinary school, Jagne began research on Newcastle disease in The Gambia, publishing her findings in Avian Pathology and cementing her focus on poultry medicine. She was mentored by world-renowned poultry researcher Dr. Karel “Ton” Schat, DVM, PhD, who remained a guiding influence throughout her career.

Photo: Carol Jennings/Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

Colleagues clap for Jarra Jagne, DVM, upon the announcement of her selection as recipient of the 2025 Daniel Elmer Salmon Award for Distinguished Alumni Service.

A global voice for poultry and public health

After graduation, Jagne returned briefly to The Gambia, where she was the first woman veterinarian to return home to practice in the country. She worked closely with women livestock producers to improve livelihoods and food security. Seeking to deepen her poultry expertise, she later completed a poultry pathology residency at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia before launching a career that spanned academia, industry, and government.

Jagne went on to hold senior veterinary positions with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the US Agency for International Development, where she led avian influenza preparedness programs across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Her work emphasized a One Health approach.“I worked with numerous governments and communities devastated by avian influenza,” Jagne said. “It required not only veterinary knowledge but also diplomacy and communication—skills we don’t always learn in veterinary school.”

Mentorship, teaching, and future vision

In 2010, Jagne returned to Cornell as a poultry specialist in the Animal Health Diagnostic Center. Today, she teaches in the DVM program, oversees the avian health program and provides extension services to poultry farmers across New York state, in addition to her faculty appointment.

Jagne has mentored dozens of veterinary students—many of whom now work in the poultry field—and remains deeply committed to outreach, according to Cornell. “As a teacher of poultry medicine, I believe in bringing the farm to the classroom and the classroom to the farm,” she said in the release.

Former student Hailey Quercia, DVM, recalled Jagne’s influence: “She always provided the same level of support, whether to someone with a single pet hen or thousands of birds. Her example is something I strive toward.”

Although there is plenty keeping Jagne busy at Cornell, she also has dreams of returning to The Gambia to continue some work she had started with women’s and youth poultry groups to help improve livelihoods and encourage food self-sufficiency. She also hopes to expand her scholarship and mentorship efforts to help increase female literacy in the country, and to assist in advising the University of The Gambia as they matriculate their first cohort of BVSc students this September.

“This work is deeply personal,” Jagne said in the release. “I’m proud to give back to the communities and profession that helped shape me.”

Reference

Renowned avian expert, Dr. Jarra Jagne, awarded highest alumni honor at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. News release. Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. August 5, 2025.