Ilene Kurzman

Ilene & Echo

Senior Scientist at UW School of Veterinary Medicine

Ilene Kurzman grew up in New York and earned her doctorate at Columbia University.  She entered the veterinary medicine field while writing her dissertation on the dog as a model for human breast cancer immunotherapy at the Animal Medical Center in New York. There, Ilene worked with Dr. Greg MacEwen, one of the founding fathers of veterinary medical oncology. When the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine opened in 1983, Ilene joined Dr. MacEwen in developing the oncology service. Since 1983, Ilene has supervised Dr. MacEwen’s and then Dr. David Vail’s oncology research laboratory and implemented and managed the veterinary oncology clinical trials at UW. Ilene retired as a Senior Scientist Emerita in May of 2022.

When not engaging in veterinary medicine, you’ll find Ilene walking with her dog, hiking the trails of Wisconsin, and on the water either kayaking, cruising on a SUP, or padding with TEAMSurvivor Madison’s dragon boat team.  

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It began as a love story; the attraction, immediate. In 2001, a small white fluffball with an infectious smile that had me at "hello", came bounding full steam ahead and into my arms; and yes, that was all it took.

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