Prof. Dr. Donald H. Schlafer

Dr. Schlafer is Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University where he has been a faculty member since 1982. He is a member of the Department of Biomedical Sciences. He is a senior diagnostic pathologist in the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell, and his teaching responsibilities include general and systems pathology, foreign infectious animal diseases, and theriogenology. His primary teaching responsibilities are with veterinary students, graduate students and pathology and theriogenology residents. He has an active research program in comparative reproductive pathology with focus on placental pathophysiology.

Dr. Schlafer's educational background includes a BS  degree (1971), Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (1974), and MS  [Microbiology, (1975)] degrees from Cornell University. He practiced in a mixed animal clinical veterinary practice in Albany, NY for 3 years (1975-1979 followed by a 2-year residency program in veterinary pathology at the University of Georgia. Following the completion of the residency program, Dr. Schlafer continued his graduate dissertation research at the Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory with Dr. Chuck Mebus. In 1980 he was awarded a PhD degree from the University of Georgia and joined the faculty of the Department of Veterinary Pathology at Cornell University.

Dr. Schlafer is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists, the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists, and the American College of Theriogenologists.  He was a senior visiting fellow in the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Oxford, England from 1990 to 1991 and spent part of his second sabbatical this last fall at the San Diego Zoo and the UCSD Medical School studying placental diseases of humans and a variety of exotic animal species. He lives on a farm near Ithaca, New York with his wife and sons.