Meet Your Board – Jenee Odani, Secretary

Dr. Jenee Odani (kneeling). Also pictured: Blaine Ishizu and Dr. Kim Kozuma (HDOA)

Dr. Jenee Odani graduated from the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 1999. She can’t believe that she’s already 20 years out of school since she vividly remembers her first day of orientation in Surge IV! She completed a diagnostic pathology residency at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System and is a board-certified veterinary anatomic pathologist. She grew up on Maui and graduated from H.P. Baldwin High School where she was the captain of the debate team, then attended UH Mānoa for two years before graduating with a B.A. in Zoology from the University of Washington.

She has had a lifelong love of cats, starting with a silver-tipped Persian named Lady Ming of Tara to her newest, Joey, a bottle-raised buff bicolor with a bobbed tail. She was also obsessed at various times of her life with horses, snails, and ants. She has served as the UH Mānoa Extension Veterinarian since 2016 and currently has projects with shrimp disease diagnostics, small ruminant infectious diseases including parasites, bovine
semen certification, food animal continuing education, and poultry diseases. Prior to joining the UH Mānoa Cooperative Extension Services, she was with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s Veterinary Laboratory.

Her professional interests include infectious diseases, especially foreign animal and zoonotic diseases, fish/shrimp diseases, diagnostic methods, and quality management systems. She was the previous Chair of the Hawaii Veterinary Licensing Board and is currently the advisor for the UH Mānoa Pre-Veterinary Club where she mentors bright, eager, pre-veterinary students.

She lives in Pearl City with her husband (Norman) and son (Nicholas) and is active with the Shotokan Karate International Federation-Hawaii (has the rank of Shodan) and Boy Scout Troop 147. Please contact her if you are interested in learning how to make Kadomatsu this December!