New faculty member Umaña Sédo brings love of mentoring students, care of cattle to veterinary college
While Sebastian Umaña Sédo has big plans for clinical research, that’s not what excites him most in his new role at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.
“I personally like the mentoring part,” Umaña Sédo said. “I’m looking forward to mentoring our students, undergrad students and graduate students. I think I have some great ideas for that, and I would like to put them into practice. I think that for these programs it is more than the academic part that you give to a student. I think that having a professor who supports you and tries to improve your skills and professional qualities is very important. So I hope I can do that with the students.”
Umaña Sédo joined the veterinary college in January as an assistant professor of production management medicine. He received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) at the National University of La Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2015.
After working as a veterinarian for three years in Argentina, Umaña Sédo came to the United States in 2018, taking on a year-long agricultural internship at the Aurora Organic Dairy in Gill, Colorado, largely focused on hoof trimming and lameness. After that, he obtained a master’s degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Florida and then a doctorate in veterinary sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
Western Virginia’s mountains, reminiscent of his native Costa Rica, attracted Umaña Sédo to Virginia Tech, but also the opportunities in large animal medicine and research.
“There is a wide variety of cases: beef cattle, dairy cattle, swine, small ruminants,” Umaña Sédo said. “I think it's very unique for a veterinary school to have that load of cases and ambulatory service. And there are other research opportunities and collaborations.”
Umaña Sédo said he wants to do deeper research into lameness in cattle, which he describes as “an area that’s been neglected for a long time.” He said he also wants to develop strategies for improving health and performance in dairy cows and apply his expertise in hoof trimming to clinical services the college offers for area cattle.
“My idea is to establish a lab here,” Umaña Sédo said. ”Hopefully, in five years, we can already have a couple of projects going on in the area, which not only will be of value to the researchers and the university, but also to the farmers in Virginia.”
