09/18/2025
Yesterday was the 97th Northeastern Conference on Avian Diseases (NECAD) held at the Penn Stater with the PA Poultry Sales & Service Conference. The Penn State University Animal Diagnostic Lab Avian Pathology team contributed to the meeting in many ways, including inviting speakers, organizing the agenda, moderating the conference, and giving general session and scientific session presentations.
- Dr. Megan Lighty served as moderator for the conference and conducted the NECAD annual business meeting.
- Dr. Emily Frye, DVM, MBA presented her work on avian metapneumovirus ("Pennsylvania aMPV outbreak overview") in the morning general session and her work on blackhead disease ("Epidemiologic investigation of blackhead disease outbreaks in Pennsylvania turkey flocks") in the afternoon scientific session.
- Dr. Stephanie Benedict presented an interesting case report ("Beyond the respiratory tract: peritoneal culture of Avibacterium paragallinarum in commercial layers") in the scientific session and won the award for "Best Postdoc/Resident Presentation". Congratulations, Stephanie!
- And Dr. Kayla Niel presented the additional outbreak characterization work done on the 2023 PA HPAI pheasant case in collaboration with the University of Minnesota and the NIH.
It was a great day connecting with the poultry industry. Huge thank you to all of the invited speakers and those that contributed abstracts.