I study emerging diseases in aquatic systems combining the fields of fish health and aquatic invasive species (AIS). I strive to identify threats, understand risks, and develop diagnostic assays to balance the needs of my stakeholders. I have worked on a diverse array of topics including disease ecology, aquaculture, therapeutic target animal safety, fish kills, risk management, diagnostic development and pathogen discovery, and ecosystem health. My interdisciplinary research program has provided positive impacts with local and international significance.

Most recently, I have collaborated with Katie Fiorella collecting several funding awards to fund our PhD student, Eric Teplitz, in Kenya.  Farmer survey data collected by our team in 2023 indicate that biosecurity practices are strikingly absent in the Kenyan cage aquaculture industry. Large-scale fish kills, particularly in the absence of biosecurity and fish health management, threaten both the cage and pond aquaculture industries as well as critically important fisheries in the region. Our findings on the combined challenges of infectious disease, AMR, and biosecurity will support Kenyan aquaculture to supply nutrient-dense fish to communities highly-dependent on aquatic foods and will have broad implications for rapidly developing aquaculture industries globally.

Our 2024 summer research project will involve a collaboration with Gary Whittaker’s visiting PhD student from City University of Hong Kong and my AQUAVET Summer Fellowship student, Grace Gonzalez, one of CVM’s combined degree students.  We will test the efficacy of a plasmid-based vaccine to combat Tilapia Lake Virus infections in our excellent VMC Aquatic Facility.

I have continued my collaboration with investigators at Rockefeller University examining interferon induction in invasive sea lamprey utilizing viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) infection and poly I:C injections. We are documenting increased gene expression in several candidate innate immune genes. 

In 2024 I also restarted a mycobacterial surveillance study of Striped Bass in New York’s marine waters in collaboration with Jessica Best at the Hudson River Estuary Program, which is managed by both Cornell University and the NYSDEC. We are testing 870 spleen samples with a combination of acid fast histological and qPCR assays. 

I have also collaborated with John Farrell, SUNY ESF since 2005, on VHSV-related research on the St. Lawrence River fisheries affected by this listed pathogen.  Our PhD student, Anna Conklin Haws, defended her PhD thesis in April of 2024, where she has studied VHSV persistence and continued ecological impacts in the St. Lawrence River basin by measuring susceptibility and abundance of different fish hosts. 

One of my City University of Hong Kong PhD students, Angus Lam completed his thesis modeling the spread of Salmonid Rickettsial Septicemia in Chile. The second City University student, Jenn Huang, visited for two months this spring and is getting ready to defend her thesis examining the effects of ozone nanobubbles on the microbiome in Jade Perch ponds. Cornell University Laboratory Animal Resident Elizabeth Lavin defended her Master’s degree research on treating Pseudoloma neurophilia infections of zebrafish with fumagillin and albendazole. 

I finalized the study report for the florfenicol target animal safety testing with red drum we conducted in 2022-2023. I am still negotiating with Merck and the FDA MUMS Program Grant on whether a second study with a different marine fish species is necessary.  My collaboration with the Aquatic Animal Drug Approval Partnership colleagues at USFWS in Bozeman, MT during several other target animal safety studies has been very valuable to my success.  The results have been sent for FDA-CVM review by the Office of New Animal Drug Evaluation.

In 2022-2023 I was asked to consult on a pilot recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) project titled Development of Inland Aquaculture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). I advised on biosecurity issues and coordinated experiments examining the immunostimulant impact of an olive oil byproduct and related fish performance on growth, feed conversion, and survivability of rainbow trout and common carp.   We also measured the cortisol hormone levels after exposure to two stressors, water temperature or unionized ammonia increases, at the end of the two-month trial. The experiments were performed at the Al-Muzahmiya Research Station in the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) greenhouses southwest of Riyadh, KSA. 

My research results are presented to various colleagues and stakeholders at the following meetings: Eastern Fish Health Workshop (rotating locations); Annual Meeting of the New York Chapter, American Fisheries Society (AFS); the AFS-Fish Health Section Annual Meeting; and the International Symposium on Aquatic Animal Health, which was last held in Santiago, Chile.  The fish drug research results are presented to a broader group of industry and agency stakeholders at Aquaculture America, which rotates in Honolulu, HI, Las Vegas, NV, and New Orleans, LA; and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Aquatic Animal Drug Approval Partnership (AADAP) Program Annual Meeting, held most years in Bozeman, MT.

PhD (Cornell University)
MS (Oregon State University
BA (University of New Hampshire)

Dr. Getchell was previously a member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology since 1995 (previously he was an Extension Associate and Research Support Specialist in the Department of Avian and Aquatic Animal Medicine, (1990-1995). He served as a marine pathologist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (1985-1990) after graduating with an M.S. from Oregon State University focusing on diseases of salmonids. He has obtained funding (FDA, USDA, US AID, NY Sea Grant, etc.) to study emerging diseases of fish, molecular diagnostic methods, and target animal safety studies.

Journal of Aquatic Animal Health Best Paper Award 2011

Past President of the American Fisheries Society Fish Health Section
Associate Director of AQUAVET® (2011-present)
AVMA Aquatic Veterinary Medical Committee (2018-2024)