"Dr. Cotter is an outstanding clinician. Her diagnostic skills, patient care, and rapport with pet owners are superb."

(January 18, 2003) - As a medical investigator, author, educator, and veterinarian Dr. Susan Cotter has contributed to and touched the lives of so many in the veterinary medical field today. She is known nationally and internationally as one of the leading researchers in comparative oncology and veterinary clinical oncology, author or co-author of over 60 original publications in refereed veterinary and human medical journals, and a passionate professor at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, where she has taught since 1981.

Dr. Cotter, an Illinois native, received her D.V.M. in 1966 from the University of Illinois School of Veterinary Medicine. Following her graduation, Dr. Cotter moved to Boston where she completed a rotating small animal internship at Angell Memorial Hospital. Dr. Cotter remained at Angell as a staff member in Internal Medicine from 1967 to 1981. It was in March of 1981 that Dr. Cotter joined the faculty of Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine.

Her work extends far beyond the classroom; Dr. Cotter in collaboration with Max Essex, Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the Harvard School of Public Health, was at the forefront of pioneering research regarding the feline leukemia virus (FeLV). The work conducted by the doctors has had an immeasurable impact on feline health and welfare. It is this work with FeLV that has contributed significantly to the rapid pace of early research into human Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

During the 1980's Dr. Cotter published some of the best early descriptions of the response of canine and feline lymphoma to chemotherapy. Later her chemotherapeutic protocols were adopted by the Veterinary Cancer Society as the standard to which all other protocols should be compared. Over the years, Dr. Cotter has continued to refine and improve her chemotherapy protocols, and with her seminal publications in this area she has helped produce widespread acceptance of the value of chemotherapy in the management of companion animal cancer.

Dr. Cotter has received numerous honors and awards including the Transfusion Medicine Academic Award from the National Institutes of Health, Tufts University's Beecham Award for Research Excellence, Outstanding Woman Veterinarian of the Year Award given by the AVMA, the Carnation Award for Research in Feline Medicine, and now the Mark L. Morris, Sr. Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc.