Speaker bio page for Karen Overall

Bio

Dr. Karen L. Overall has BA, MA and VMD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She did her residency training in veterinary behavioral medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (DACVB). She has served on the faculties of both the veterinary and medical schools at the University of Pennsylvania where she has taught undergraduates, graduate students and professional students, and ran the Behavior Clinic at Penn Vet for more than a dozen years. Dr. Overall lectures at veterinary schools world-wide and is a Senior Research Scientist in the Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Overall has given hundreds of national and international presentations and short courses and is the author of over 100 scholarly publications, dozens of textbook chapters and the texts Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Small Animals (1997; Elsevier) and Manual of Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Dogs and Cats (2013; Elsevier) and of the DVD, Humane Behavioral Care for Dogs: Problem Prevention and Treatment (2013; Elsevier). She is the editor-in-chief for Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research (Elsevier).

Dr. Overall has been named the North American Veterinary Conference (NAVC) Small Animal Speaker of the Year, has been awarded the Cat Writer’s Association Certificate of Excellence for “The Social Cat” column in Cat Fancy Magazine, and in 2010 was named one of the The Bark’s 100 Best and Brightest - Bark Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the dog world over the past 25 years.

Dr. Overall serves and has served on numerous governmental committees focused on canine health and behavior, including the US Department of Defense’s Blue Ribbon panel on canine-post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). She frequently consults with governments locally, nationally and internationally about legal and welfare issues of pet dogs and behavioral, welfare and performance issues pertaining to working dogs.

Dr. Overall’s research focuses on neurobehavioral genetics of dogs, the development of normal and abnormal behaviors and how we assess behavior, especially as concerns working dogs.