Julie Levy

Hear how I pronounce my name

My work focuses on the health and welfare of animals in shelters, feline infectious diseases, and humane alternatives for cat population control. I joined the UF College of Veterinary Medicine in 1997 as a specialist in small animal internal medicine. A year later, I founded Operation Catnip, a community cat trap-neuter-return program that has spayed, neutered, and vaccinated more than 100,000 cats in Gainesville since 1998. In addition to providing a vital community service, the program serves as the largest surgery training opportunity for our veterinary students.

A decade later, I joined Dr. Cynda Crawford to launch the Shelter Medicine Program at the College of Veterinary Medicine. This educational and discovery initiative has a global impact on the care of homeless animals and is the academic home of the Fear Free Shelters program. Later, I teamed up with Dr. Kate Hurley for the Million Cat Challenge, a shelter-based campaign that saved more than 5 million cats in shelters across North America. Our current project, Maddie’s Million Pet Challenge, aims to create transformative “communities of practice” that deliver access to care through humane community-centric programming—inside and outside of the shelter—to achieve the right outcome for every pet.

My research program centers on improving the health, welfare, and outcomes of animals in shelters and community-based care systems through evidence‑driven, highly translational studies. Across my career, my work has consistently advanced practical, scalable solutions to the most pressing medical and operational challenges facing animal shelters.

A central focus of my research is the ecology, diagnosis, and management of major feline and canine infectious diseases, including FeLV, FIV, FIP, heartworm disease, and other pathogens of concern in shelter settings. My team’s studies on FeLV prognostication, lifetime outcomes for FeLV/FIV‑infected cats, and evidence‑based FIP treatment protocols have become widely referenced by shelter medical directors and private practitioners nationwide, directly improving the quality of care for vulnerable animals in resource‑limited environments.

Another major theme of my research addresses systems‑level challenges in animal sheltering, such as the nationwide decline in spay/neuter surgical capacity, veterinary workforce shortages, and strategies for delivering high‑volume, high‑quality care. Our investigations into operational bottlenecks and workforce sustainability have informed local and national policy discussions and guided funding priorities for community veterinary care programs.

My work is intentionally collaborative and deeply applied. I partner with veterinary students, interns, residents, practicing veterinarians, shelters, and national animal‑welfare organizations to ensure that research findings translate rapidly into real‑world clinical protocols. This commitment to impactful, accessible scholarship is reflected in more than 200 publications and 300 invited national and international presentations, key advisory roles with major industry partners, and research funding from national animal welfare and veterinary research foundations.