The Future Is Four: Dive Into The 4 Rights - The Right Care in the Right Place at the Right Time to the Right Outcome - Webinar Series

Dr. Karsten became board certified in Shelter Medicine Practice in November, 2017. Her main areas of interest include teaching and mentoring undergraduate and veterinary students, working with shelter leaders on change management, and providing accessible, affordable veterinary care to everyone who seeks it.

Throughout her KSMP career, Dr. Karsten has helped to identify and implement best practice protocols and capacity for care models at shelters across the United States and Canada.

She also continues to work to understand her role and that of animal shelters in increasing awareness of social justice issues and implementing policies to bring about equity.

Read more about Karsten

Chumkee obtained her DVM degree at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in 2012. She then completed an internship at the ASPCA’s Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital in NYC in 2013, which included experience in anti-cruelty work and shelter medicine. Chumkee was a resident at the KSMP from 2013-2016. She headed the Northern Tier Shelter Initiative and served as Senior Director of Shelter Medicine Services at the ASPCA before returning to the KSMP in January, 2022 as an outreach veterinarian.Her current interests include the role of community collaboration in mitigating pet homelessness, proactive shelter population management, and infectious disease prevention in shelters. 

With an undergraduate degree in Business/Economics from UCLA and a DVM from UC Davis, Dr. Cindi Delany became the first ever Shelter Veterinarian at Sacramento County Animal Care and Regulation in California under the newly created UC Davis Shelter Medicine Program in 2001.Dr. Delany’s focus in KSMP animal shelter consultations and industry speaking is on programs targeted to improve animal outcomes, provide environmental enrichment for shelter animals, explore shelter animal behavior and training, improve shelter data collection and analysis, and maximize operational efficiencies in a limited resource environment. She currently serves as the Master of the Learniverse, the online learning platform for Maddie's Million Pet Challenge. 

Dr. Hurley is the founding director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program and co-founder of the Million Cat Challenge, a shelter-based initiative to save the lives of one million more cats in five years. Over 1,500 shelters more than tripled that goal, between them saving over three million cats against their own baseline before joining the challenge. Hurley’s research interests include welfare of confined dogs and cats, humane and effective strategies to manage community cats, and infectious disease prevention. She will always love shelter work because it has the potential to improve the lives of so many animals and the people who work so hard to care for them.

In her work for the Koret Shelter Medicine Program, Dr. Wagner has helped shelters from Florida to Vancouver. Her contributions have ranged from Capacity for Care (C4C) calculations and population health to full facility design consultations.After initially fashioning them by hand, Dr. Wagner oversaw the design and manufacture of the Kat Portal for the Koret Shelter Medicine Program. Over 5,000 of her hand-made and manufactured portals have been installed in animal shelters throughout North America and beyond, earning Dr. Wagner the nickname, The Portal Queen. The portals safely and cleanly couple pairs of existing cat cages, transforming cramped housing into roomier double-compartment condos.Dr. Wagner’s current interests include evidence based shelter design and the effects of housing and the shelter environment on animal health and well-being. 

Karen lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is the executive director of the Cat Adoption Team. CAT is the largest cat-focused shelter in the Pacific Northwest. CAT is a founding partner of the Animal Shelter Alliance of Portland (ASAP). Working together since 2006, our coalition has increased the live release rate for cats in the Portland metro area from 49% to 94%. Today, most of their cats come to our shelter from over 50 shelter and rescues across Oregon and beyond.

Karen started her animal welfare career in 1996 as a veterinary assistant in the cat areas at Best Friends Animal Society. During ten years at Best Friends, she managed the organization’s help desk and helped run the national outreach program, then called “No More Homeless Pets.” She also fostered dozens of cats and dogs, focusing on neonates and under-socialized adolescents (though also including one piglet). After moving to Portland in 2006, she worked for the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs, an organization advancing non-surgical fertility control options worldwide (think: “spay shot”). After serving on the board of directors for Cat Adoption Team, she became the executive director in 2012.