Dr. Candace Lundin, DVM 1983

American Veterinary Medical Association 2024

Dr. Candace Lundin, Middletown, Virginia, was selected by the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine for its 2025 Alumni Recognition Award presented at a reception held in conjunction with the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Convention held in Washington, D.C., July 18, 2025. The award is given to veterinarians whose careers have served as exemplary role models for future alumni in a professional and community setting.

“Dr. Lundin has had a remarkable career working in many different fields within veterinary medicine,” said Dr. Elizabeth Davis, interim dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. “The common thread has been her energy, passion and dedication toward the proper health and well-being of animals and their caretakers. Dr. Lundin provides a great example of the many ways veterinarians provide leadership and serve their communities and beyond.”

Dr. Lundin decided early on that she wanted to become a veterinarian. Born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas, the location for the College of Veterinary Medicine at K-State, her educational path was planned out long before she entered high school.

After graduating with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 1985, Dr. Lundin stayed on to become the veterinary teaching hospital’s first-ever equine intern. She continued another year to obtain a master’s degree in anatomy and physiology, with her thesis comparing performance indices in horses on the high-speed treadmill with those on the track. She then moved to Virginia where she spent two years specializing in equine surgery at the Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg. Over a period of eight years, Dr. Lundin moved from Baltimore, where she was in a private equine practice, to the suburbs of Chicago, where she served as the associate medical editor of the American Veterinary Medical Journal and the American Journal of Veterinary Research for the AVMA, to New York City, where she managed global scientific communication plans for Pfizer’s Animal Health Division.

“Receiving this recognition came as a great surprise to me,” Dr. Lundin said. “My career has led me down many different roads, and so it’s not as though there was one grand achievement. Instead, you might say that my career demonstrates the value of a K-State veterinary education in how it can be used in diverse ways.”

While at the AVMA, Dr. Lundin led the development of a process for including companion animal veterinary care in the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) as part of the Federal Response Plan during times of disaster declarations. This was the first time that companion animal care would be included as part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response. Prior to this, only the protection of food animals was covered in the response to a natural disaster, but Hurricane Andrew in 1992 demonstrated to federal authorities the strength of the human-animal bond. Pet owners had been unwilling to evacuate and leave their animals behind, which then put those people’s lives at risk as well as those of emergency responders. FEMA reached out to the AVMA to offer an opportunity for veterinary medical teams to join the NDMS. A Memorandum of Understanding was developed with the American Red Cross to allow inclusion of companion animals in certain shelters. Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams were formed, and Dr. Lundin oversaw their first federal activation during Hurricane Marilyn that hit St. Thomas in 1995. Dr. Lundin encouraged state emergency management agencies to develop state disaster animal preparedness plans, and she spoke at the National Hurricane Conference to an audience of emergency managers to make them aware of the developing plans.

Dr. Lundin’s career path next moved further into pharmaceutical research and medical publishing, first in veterinary medicine and then to the human side of medicine over the next 10 years. Beginning at Pfizer (now Zoetis), Dr. Lundin organized and managed continuing education seminars in multiple countries as part of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, the World Buiatrics Congress, and the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology. She led the publication of study data for Revolution®/Stronghold™ from its discovery as UK-124,114 to its formulation development (i.e., selamectin) through its clinical trials, approval and launch.

That experience led her to overseeing medical publication plans for human drugs in the areas of bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, overactive bladder, erectile dysfunction, chemotherapy-induced emesis and a variety of orphan diseases for GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Astellas, Sanofi and others while she was vice president of Spectrum Healthcare Communications in New Jersey. She assisted in pre-approval presentations for the FDA Advisory Committee on natalizumab (Tysabri), the first non-interferon for multiple sclerosis, and then served as writer/editor for the pivotal phase 3 studies. Work on vedolizumab for Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis led to managing those publications in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Lundin then prepared continuing medical education programs for physicians, psychiatrists, neurologists and urologists at major medical conventions in the US.

During those 10 years of working with "big pharma’"in the northeast, Dr. Lundin commuted weekly back down to the horse country of Virginia to work with her husband, the late Frank Zureick, in a thoroughbred breeding/sales, training and racing business. The Grade 1 stakes-winning "millionaress,"Urbane, winner of the Ashland Stakes and Maryland Million Stakes, was bred by Lundin/Zureick. Serving on the strategic executive planning committee for the American Association of Equine Practitioners also kept Dr. Lundin involved in the equine industry.

Today, Dr. Lundin breeds and shows Russell Terriers under the prefix D.B.F. Russell Terriers. The D.B.F. stands for Dog Branch Farm, named for their previous thoroughbred horse farm that had a creek running through it called Dog Branch Creek. D.B.F. Russell terriers bred/owned the first male and female champions in breed history for the American Kennel Club (AKC), and is the only American breeder to have Russell terriers win the titles of World Winner and Junior World Winner at World Dog Shows in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Helsinki, Finland, respectively. She is also serving as a conformation judge of the Russell terrier at AKC shows.