3 Veterinarians You Need to Know This International Women's Day
In 1903, Dr. Mignon Nicholson became the first college-trained female veterinarian in the United States. Then... silence. For decades, almost no one followed her.
By 1975, women made up just 5% of the profession — roughly 1,200 people. The message from the establishment was clear: veterinary medicine wasn't for women. They'd leave after marriage. After kids. Why bother training them?
They bothered.
Title IX passed in 1972. The profession cracked open. By 1986, women and men were enrolling in veterinary schools in equal numbers. By 2017, women became the majority in the field. Today, 85% of veterinary students are women. 63% of small animal practitioners are women. The profession that once turned them away now runs on them.
But representation in a field isn't the same as power in it. Women still hold fewer leadership roles. The pay gap is real. The ceiling, while cracked, hasn't fallen yet.
That's what makes this International Women's Day worth celebrating loudly — and specifically. Not with vague inspiration, but with names. Because Dr. Nicholson deserved to have names to look up to. So do the students walking into vet school today.
Here are three.
1. Rear Admiral (Ret.) Estella Z. Jones, DVM First. Always first.
RDML Estella Z. Jones didn't just climb the ladder in veterinary medicine — she built a new one. She became the first minority female veterinarian in the U.S. Public Health Service to reach the rank of Rear Admiral. Let that land.
As Assistant Surgeon General at the FDA, she's directed programs protecting global health, built sustainable countermeasure programs from the ground up, and created accredited virtual-reality training courses with the University of Texas Medical Branch. She's Co-Chair of FDA's Animal Welfare Council and has shaped biosafety and animal care policy at the highest levels of government.
She's also deployed for 9/11, the 2001 Anthrax attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and COVID-19. And in her off hours? She trains registered service dogs to visit chronically ill patients.
The awards — Distinguished Service Medal, Presidential Citation, HHS Secretary's Badge — are impressive. But what defines RDML Jones is the line she lives by: stand on the shoulders of giants, then reach back and pull someone else up.
2. Dr. Stephanie Davis, DVM, MD, MPH She chose all three lanes.
Some people pick a specialty. Dr. Stephanie Davis picked veterinary medicine, human medicine, and aerospace medicine — and dominated all of them.
It started at Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine, where she earned her DVM and conducted research at the CDC, winning the National Veterinary Public Health Student of the Year Award in 1996. Then she commissioned as a Public Health Officer in the United States Air Force, fulfilling her AFROTC commitment and spending four years learning how health works at scale.
That experience sparked something. She enrolled at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, earned her MD, then entered the RAM (Road to Aerospace Medicine) program — training as a family medicine flight surgeon and becoming an aerospace medicine and public health specialist. She finished it off with a Master of Public Health from Yale.
DVM. MD. MPH. Air Force officer. Aerospace specialist. CDC researcher.
Dr. Davis is proof that a veterinary degree isn't a destination. It's a launchpad.
3. Commander Wanda Wilson Egbe, DVM, MPH When disaster strikes, she answers.
Commander Wanda Wilson Egbe isn't waiting for someone else to show up. She IS the response.
As Chief Veterinary Officer and Director of the National Veterinary Response Team (NVRT) within HHS's National Disaster Medical System, Commander Egbe leads one of the most critical — and underrecognized — teams in emergency preparedness. Over 15 domestic deployments. California Wildfires. COVID-19 vaccination teams. Twenty-five years of clinical and leadership experience backing every decision she makes.
She's a Tuskegee University grad (yes, Tuskegee keeps showing up — there's a reason for that) with a DVM and a Master of Public Health from the University of Iowa. Her dual expertise in veterinary medicine and public health makes her exactly the kind of professional that disasters demand and communities need.
Commander Egbe is a veterinarian, a veteran, and a living reminder that the skills we build in vet med — precision, calm under pressure, big-picture thinking — translate everywhere.
Dr. Nicholson graduated alone in 1903. These women didn't get here alone — and they're making sure no one has to.
Apply for the leadership roles. Negotiate the salary. Mentor someone. That's the assignment.
Happy International Women's Day.
