Dr. Richard Bowen, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, was awarded the American Veterinary Medical Association’s 2020 Lifetime Excellence in Research Award, which celebrates career achievement in impactful veterinary or biomedical research.
Bowen’s work focuses on viral diseases that affect domestic and wild animals and spillover into human populations. As director of the Animal Models Core, Bowen supervises many trials to evaluate vaccines and therapeutics. As new infectious agents have emerged, Bowen has been at the forefront of basic epidemiology and the development of novel control strategies for a broad range of pathogens.
“Dr. Bowen has a tremendous research portfolio and has performed essential research on emerging disease threats including West Nile virus, plague, MERS, and many others, including ongoing transformative research on SARS CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19,” said Susan VandeWoude, professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology and director of the One Health Institute. “His work has aided advances in both veterinary and human health and I can’t think of a more deserving recipient of this prestigious award.”
A veterinarian and scientist, Dr. Bowen plays a key role in research efforts on both a national and international scale. His international work has included helping small-scale livestock holders in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, establishing facilities for training and testing of infectious diseases in livestock in Nicaragua, partnering with the University of Nairobi on disease threats such as brucellosis and foot and mouth disease, and empowering women in rural villages in Nepal to more effectively track and report diseases in livestock.
“Dr. Bowen is not only an outstanding citizen of CSU, he is an outstanding citizen of the world who truly translates discovery into service,” said Colin Clay, professor and executive associate dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “He draws from an unending reservoir of energy that is vitalized by working to find solutions to problems that truly matter.”
Bowen’s impressive career spans decades and will have lasting impacts on future infective diseases research.
“Dr. Bowen exemplifies the best of being a teacher, mentor, and professor,” said Ray Goodrich, professor and executive director of the Infectious Disease Research Center at CSU. “He is someone who thinks of his students and post-docs and prepares them for the future. He is someone who thinks of patients in the animal and human realm and of ways to protect them against disease by advancing our understanding of how those diseases spread and work.”
