Twins Ann and Lydia Carpenter follow veterinary and public health path to parallel career tracks

Identical twins Ann and Lydia Carpenter followed nearly identical educational paths through dual degrees at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and now fill similar roles in comparable federal agencies.

Ann Carpenter MPH '18, DVM '19, a veterinary medical officer in the Rickettsial Zoonoses Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will deliver a continuing education talk at Connect 2024, the veterinary college's annual alumni and mentoring weekend set for Oct. 4-5. 

She will speak at 10:05 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, on "Vectorborne Diseases Affecting Companion Animals and their Owners: Beyond Lyme Disease." Much of her work is devoted to surveillance and investigation of tickborne illnesses such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and anaplasmosis.

Lydia Carpenter MPH '18, DVM '19, who plans to attend Connect, serves as a veterinary medical officer in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Veterinary Services' strategy and policy unit, working on surveillance, monitoring, and mitigation of foreign animal diseases such as African swine fever and endemic ones such as Senecavirus A. 

The Carpenter twins kept on essentially the same educational path from Yorktown High School in Arlington; through bachelor's degrees in biology and competitive swimming at Middlebury College in Vermont; and to both earning a Master in Public Health and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in the public/corporate track at Virginia Tech. They recently completed their American College of Veterinary Preventive Medicine board exam and continued to study together.

But there was some anxiety when it appeared their paths might have a chance to diverge. 

"I remember it was just enormously stressful before we received the results for our vet school applications," said Ann Carpenter. "Lydia was having recurring nightmares that one of us was accepted and one of us was rejected. And I think our mom did as well."

"It was always very stressful for us if one of us got in and one of us didn't, and it was also stressful for our parents," Lydia Carpenter said. "I think, being twins, there's an exaggerated sense of comparison. It's worked to our advantage in that we've always worked to try to help each other get to where we are. 

"We studied throughout vet school together and we edit each other's resumes now," Lydia Carpenter said. "We talk through any issues that we're having together, and we really always have each other's backs and each other's support."

But soon after graduation, their paths finally did diverge for a few months to opposite corners of the country. 

"I moved just outside of Boston to work in small animal practice, and Lydia moved to south Texas to work as a field veterinarian with the Texas Animal Health Commission," Ann Carpenter said. "I don't think either of us quite anticipated how lonely the first six months or a year post-grad would be. Certainly, you know that you're splitting up from your friends and your classmates when you graduate, but then being in a completely new role in a new city and not having the same support system of your classmates for eight or 10 hours a day, that was a big transition."

Both got their start in their current federal agency posts just before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. That was "jumping into the deep end" at the CDC, Ann Carpenter said, as she worked with state and local partners investigating animal cases of COVID infection and coordinating domestic One Health efforts.

For Lydia Carpenter, working as a port veterinarian for APHIS at the time, COVID-19 protocols greatly complicated the international transport of animals. 

The Carpenter twins grew up wanting to be veterinarians, but as they moved through veterinary college, their interests shifted more to public health rather than being solely clinical veterinarians.

"I wanted to be working in a capacity where I could have a broader impact on human health and on animal health," Ann Carpenter said. "And I think the way to do that is working at a slightly higher level than the individual patient. I do still practice on the weekends, specifically shelter medicine, so I'm able to get my clinical hours, but during the week, when I'm at my day job at CDC, I really do enjoy the opportunity to work on that slightly higher level of epidemiology and surveillance than I would get on a patient level." 

"I loved the idea of the medicine," said Lydia Carpenter, who worked in small animal clinics in college and high school. "But there were a lot of things to work through or work around, and you could have every intent to make a difference and help those animals and still not be able to. With public health and the work that I do now, there's the ability to make a difference, less on an individual level, but on a higher level."

Lydia Carpenter said Valerie Ragan, director of the Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine, helped the twins see a wider world of veterinary and public health.

"Once we were in veterinary school, we learned that there are a lot of options," Lydia Carpenter said. "Dr. Ragan really impressed on us that we should find careers that work for us, as individuals, and find what works best with personality and work style. ... Annie and I were always really interested in infectious diseases, but didn't realize the ways that we could apply that to a career." 

Ragan was one of many professors and classmates that the Carpenter twins remember warmly from veterinary college.

"I really remember fondly the doctors who were teaching our courses — pathology with Dr. [Thomas] Cecere, anatomy with Dr. Bonnie [Smith], Dr. [Phillip] Sponenberg on the pathology service," Ann Carpenter said. "And I remember this overwhelming supportive environment among my classmates. We had a really, really great network to help each other." 

"Annie and I worked really hard," Lydia Carpenter said. "We studied a lot, but we also had a lot of fun and we had a great class. I think about our classmates and I don't think we could have gotten a better group of individuals to go through that experience with. I'm still very, very close with the majority of my vet school friends."

"There wasn't a time where I didn't feel supported by the school and by the clinicians," Ann Carpenter said. "As challenging as veterinary school was, I would do it again in a heartbeat."