A fifth-year University of Guelph student's experience working at a sausage manufacturing company changed his education and career trajectory.
news release
University of Guelph
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It took a little salami to change Benjamin Snetzinger's life.
The fifth-year student at the University of Guelph is set to graduate from Canada's first Bachelor of One Health (BOH) program this June, but One Health wasn't always his chosen path.
Snetzinger recalls a key turning point: a period of collaboration at a major sausage manufacturer, during which they helped research and develop a new salami.
“It was a really great job and a great experience in food science,” Snetzinger says, then adds with a laugh, “But there were a lot of issues, so I started looking at other programs.”
During his studies, he took an epidemiology class taught by Dr. Kelsey Spence at the Ontario Veterinary College and became fascinated with how diseases spread and change around the world, and how modeling this can help predict outcomes and save lives.
Snetzinger, a microbiology major, said the class sparked her interest in a more interdisciplinary approach.
“That’s when I realized One Health was what I wanted to do,” he says, “and how much I loved tackling complex problems and developing holistic solutions to them.”
A decades-long bachelor's degree in One Health, integrating human, animal and ecosystem health
The first BOH graduates are the culmination of more than 30 years of leadership integrating One Health into U of G’s programs.
This includes the establishment of the One Health Institute in 2018 by Dr. Kate Dewey and BOH Program Manager Katherine Heyland, which serves as a home for U of G community members engaged in One Health research, academic programs and public outreach.
U of G introduced the first BOH degree program in Canada in fall 2022. While there are several schools that offer One Health courses, U of G is the only one that offers a full degree.
The program teaches students to apply the principles of One Health, a holistic, interdisciplinary approach that integrates three pillars: human, animal and ecosystem health.
Snetzinger uses the example of COVID-19, a virus that jumped from bats to humans among cultural and environmental factors, highlighting the importance of One Health in addressing today's challenges.
“Most problems require everyone to be involved,” Snetzinger says. “And that includes sociologists and psychologists, who some might call 'soft sciences,' but who are just as important. In my program, I had the opportunity to take classes in all kinds of subjects, from sociology to geography to biology to disease.”
One Health graduates recognize connections between disciplines and professionals
Snetzinger transferred from another program and excelled in an advanced One Health course, putting her far ahead of BOH's first class of students graduating in 2026.
He is now a passionate supporter of One Health and has participated in several roundtable discussions with political leaders, including Adam van Koeverden MP, Lloyd Longfield MP and Deputy Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Harpreet Kocher, to discuss the need for One Health in government and how it can be implemented in the future.
“We need programs like BOH to develop people who understand the connections and can act as translators between disciplines, organizations and professionals,” said Brian Husband, PhD, professor of integrative biology in the College of Biological Sciences, who co-developed the program.
Snetzinger also attended the Ontario University Fair and Battle STEM to promote his program to incoming high school students.
This April, he completed an undergraduate research project aimed at reducing the impact of zoonotic diseases and improving the lives of women and girls in East Africa. He developed educational materials – a “train-the-trainer” approach – to support One Health teams at the village level.
“The goal is to create a One Health team,” he says, “where one person does environmental health, one does animal health, one does human health.”
He’s ready to return to U of G this fall to tackle the highly competitive, course-based Master of Public Health program, and as the only One Health graduate, he hopes to bring his unique interdisciplinary perspective to the public health collaborative education program.
Snetzinger expressed gratitude to many people, including his mentor, Dr. Dewey, and BOH program counselor Jessica Naida. He will take the stage at the graduation ceremony on Thursday, June 13.
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