Dr. Katherine Mautz Kocan was most recognized for her research on ticks and tick-borne pathogens.
PERKINS, OK, January 24, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Katherine Mautz Kocan, Ph.D., with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Kocan celebrates many years' experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
At Oklahoma State University, Center for Veterinary Health Sciences, Dr. Kocan served an Adjunct Assistant Professor from 1980-1998 in the Department of Veterinary Parasitology, Microbiology and Public Health, and then served in the Department of Veterinary Pathology, where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor (1980-1983), an Assistant Professor (1983-1988), an Associate Professor (1988-1993) and a Professor (1993-2016). With more than 40 years of practiced industry experience to her credit, Dr. Kocan was named a Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University in 2000, and then a Regent Professor Emerita upon her retirement in 2016.
Dr. Kocan was most recognized for her research on ticks and tick-borne pathogens. She first described the tick developmental cycle of the pathogen, Anaplasma marginale, causative agent of the economically important disease of cattle, bovine anaplasmosis. Later, her research team was the first to propagate this organism in a tick cell culture system, an accomplishment that opened up many new avenues for research and also led to the in vitro cultivation and new research opportunities for several other tick-borne pathogens. Many of her published studies described the phylogenetic relationship of strains of A. marginale, as well as the first molecular interactions between this pathogen and its tick vector. Toward the latter part of her career, Dr. Kocan's research centered on developing a sheep model for Anaplasma phagocytophilum, a tick-borne pathogen of both humans and animals, and in this model she demonstrated that A. phagocytophilum was passed by transplacental transmission, as well as being transmitted by ticks. Throughout her career, Dr. Kocan consulted on many projects, including the USAID Heartwater Research Project in Harare, Zimbabwe, and she was a Visiting Scientist at the International Laboratory for Research on Animals Diseases, Kenya, the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute in South Africa and the Kimron Veterinary Institute, Israel. She served on a plethora of review panels and editorial boards and oversaw many successful graduate students.
An expert in her field, Dr. Kocan received a Bachelor of Arts from Hiram College, a Master's of Science and Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Doctor of Philosophy from Oklahoma State University. In order to remain abreast of changes in the field, she maintained affiliations with the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Microscopy Society of Oklahoma where she served as President in 1980 and then on the Executive Committee until 1990, the Southwestern Association of Parasitologists, the American Society of Parasitologists, the American Society of Rickettsiology, the Society for Vector Ecologists, the American Society for Microbiology, and the Society for Tropical Veterinary Medicine where she served as President (1993-1996) and Secretary-Treasurer (2011-2016), and was named the Dedicatee for the 9th Biennial Meeting in 2007. She also was a member of Sigma Xi and served as the President of the Oklahoma State University Chapter in 1995-1996. Dr. Kocan served on the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, Health Research Committee from 1995 to 2014, and was Chairperson in 1999-2000. Outside of her professional activities, Dr. Kocan was a member of Rotary International where she is a Paul Harris Fellow, and from 1992-2016 she served on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma State University Friends of Music.
Utilizing her vast array of knowledge, Dr. Kocan has published more than 320 journal articles, as well as one book and ten book chapters. Alongside other scholars in the field, the variety of journals in which she published her research included the American Journal of Veterinary Research, Bovine Practitioner, Journal of Wildlife Diseases, Infection and Immunity, Journal of Protozoology, Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research, Journal of Parasitology, Journal of Insect Physiology, Journal of Medical Entomology, Ticks and Tick-borne Pathogens, Experimental and Applied Acarology, Parasitology Today, Animal Health Research Reviews, Trends in Parasitology, Proteomics, BMC Infectious Diseases, BMC Genomics, BMC Immunology, Frontiers in Biosciences, Vaccine, PLOS One, PLOS Genetics, Science and Nature Communications.
For her professional accomplishments, Dr. Kocan was presented many awards at Oklahoma State University including, the Beecham Award for Research Excellence (1986), the Women to Watch Award (1990), the Sigma Xi Lecturer Award (1995), the Pfizer Award for Research Excellence (1996, 2010), the Patent Recognition Award (2000), and the OSU Regents Distinguished Research Award (2003). Dr. Kocan received the Innovator of the Year "On the Brink" Award from the Oklahoma Journal Record, and she was honored by Hiram College with the Distinguished Alumna Award in 1984 and the J. J. Turner Award in 2010. In 2017 she was the Dedicatee of the 98th Annual Conference of the Research Workers in Animal Diseases and also inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame. Professional publications such as Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in the South and Southwest, and Who's Who in Veterinary Medicine Higher Education have also honored her for her spectacular work. In the coming years, Dr. Kocan intends to enjoy her retirement by pursuing her many interests including historical aspects of vector-borne diseases and wildlife photography.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to her profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Katherine Mautz Kocan, Ph.D., has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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