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Our Vision

Our vision for the next three years and beyond

Short-term Focus Areas

  1. Wildlife, livestock, plant, and human health
  2. Real-time monitoring of farm and environmental conditions
  3. Smart data analysis and multi-scale mathematical modeling
  4. Quantifying economic impacts

Short-term Goals

  • Develop an advisory board to lead the Initiative and be responsible for providing overarching program priorities, organizing activities, developing partnerships, and acquiring dedicated and reoccurring resources.
  • Offer seed grants and travel grants to transdisciplinary teams.
  • Support One Health working groups to create multi-institutional, transdisciplinary teams that develop proposals on One Health research.
  • Provide fellowships to graduate students and post-doctoral students.
  • Provide research support for a research associate in molecular diagnostics.
  • Establish an annual One Health Day where students and faculty present results from their One Health studies.
  • Create a distinguished seminar series of at least four university-wide seminars per year.
  • Provide public communication and programs in partnership with UT Extension.

Long-term Goals

  • Create a Tennessee Center for Global Health that state and federal authorities can turn to for monitoring and responding to zoonotic and wildlife pathogen outbreaks, emerging plant diseases, and other factors that affect human, animal, and plant health.
  • Leadership and the advisory board will work to secure dedicated funding from public sectors, foundations, and private industry.
  • Continue to support One Health curriculum and training programs for students, post-doctoral students, and professionals.
  • Provide services to the public (diagnosis, surveillance, disease response options), including a hotline to answer questions. As One Health issues arise, the Center will organize public events (e.g., town hall meetings, workshops, lectures) for outreach, as has been recently done in western Tennessee with chronic wasting disease outbreaks.
  • UT Extension specialists will share One Health information with the public and other stakeholders.