AKC Canine Health Foundation Announces Dr. Diane Brown as Chief Executive Officer

The AKC Canine Health Foundation (CHF), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to prevent, treat and cure diseases in all dogs, is pleased to announce that Dr. Diane Brown, DVM, PhD, DACVP has been named as chief executive officer (CEO) for the Foundation. Dr. Brown joined CHF in August 2015 as chief scientific officer. As CEO, Dr. Brown will lead the Foundation, overseeing operations and scientific programs from its Raleigh, NC headquarters.

“We are thrilled to elevate Dr. Brown to the CEO position. She has excelled as Chief Scientific Officer, and we are confident that with her stellar academic background and experience in the animal health non-profit sector, she will lead CHF to new heights,” said Dr. Duane Butherus, chairman of the CHF Board.

“The body of scientific work funded by CHF and its dedicated donors over the past 20 years has laid an impressive foundation from which we will continue to build, grow and innovate to solve the unmet medical needs of all dogs,” said Dr. Brown. “This is an exciting opportunity to co-join my experiences in clinical veterinary and comparative medicine and biomedical research in a focused effort to improve their lives. I’m looking forward to these new opportunities and challenges involved.”

Dr. Brown is a board-certified veterinary clinical pathologist who holds a DVM and PhD in pathology from Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. As an independent investigator and comparative pathologist, Dr. Brown has served as a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School, as director of the Comparative Clinical Pathology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, and as consulting pathologist at the University of Colorado. She previously served as the chief scientific officer for Morris Animal Foundation, and currently holds an affiliate faculty position in the Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has held prior affiliate faculty appointments in the veterinary schools at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Colorado State University and Purdue University.

Dr. Brown also brings experience in the corporate world, having served as senior pathologist at Lilly Research Laboratories for Eli Lilly and Company, in small animal veterinary practice for four years prior to beginning her residency and PhD, and has been a board member and volunteer veterinarian for service dogs. Dr. Brown brings her office mate Lily, a Llewellin Setter, to her new position.