This article was originally printed in the Sept/Oct 2025 issue of the California Veterinarian magazine.

Each year, the CVMA recognizes individuals who represent the very best of veterinary medicine in California. This year, the CVMA honors Deborah Calantropio-Covington, MSc, RVT VTS-LAM, RLATG with the Linda Markland Outstanding RVT of the Year in Non-Private Practice Award. This award honors registered veterinary technicians (RVT) demonstrating outstanding professional ability, including educational achievements, individual contributions, professional affiliations, and special experience that sets them apart from others.

After working for several years in private and emergency practices as an RVT, Deborah was recruited in 2012 to work with laboratory animals. At the time, she did not have much knowledge of lab animal medicine, as it was only briefly covered in veterinary technician school. However, Deborah was intrigued by the wide variety of species for which she would be able to provide care—not only cats and dogs, but also mice, Guinea pigs, rabbits, non-human primates, and sheep, to name a few. In the decade since she switched to lab animal medicine, Deborah’s love for the field has only fortified and blossomed—and her enthusiasm for her work is infectious.

“What makes me passionate about lab animal work now is the understanding and the connection between caring for those animals and what that translates to for myself, my family, my community, and the animals that I care for,” Deborah said. “What these animals contribute is so wide-reaching: everything that we use in the clinic every day, new vaccines, new treatments, new surgical methods. Most, if not all, of that starts somewhere within the biomedical field.”

Deborah most recently worked at Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS) as the clinical veterinary technician and global enrichment lead, where she cared for approximately 6,000 mice, rats, and rabbits. There, she was responsible for health reporting, documentation, treatment plan implementation, and novel enrichment strategies. Throughout her career, Deborah’s thoughtful and innovative dedication to animal welfare has manifested into her spearheading projects ranging from the creation of an interactive playpen for rabbits called the Hop House, to the refinement of her previous institution’s euthanasia protocol to be as pain- and fear-free as possible.

One of Deborah’s proudest accomplishments is helping phase out the use of sentinel animals, which are externally sourced and placed in a lab colony to monitor for potential infectious diseases affecting the whole population. In place of that standard practice, Deborah’s institution was one of the first to shift to PCR testing to determine if the colony is sick, resulting in a massive reduction in the number of animals being used in the lab.

“In an industry focused on population medicine, Deborah treats every patient as an individual with unwavering compassion and commitment to their quality of life,” wrote Dr. Kelly Walton, senior scientific director of veterinary sciences at BMS. “She is a strong advocate for our animals, never hesitating to ask the difficult questions to ensure we are setting and achieving the highest standards of care.”

Being a strong voice and advocate for lab animal medicine has become an important mission for Deborah, especially since biomedical research can carry a societal stigma. On the global stage, Deborah has been heavily involved in Biomedical Research Awareness Day (BRAD), which aims to open conversations to the public on what biomedical research is, why it is important, and how lab animals are treated by their caretakers. “One of the things that people often don’t understand is that labs—biomedical research—are federally regulated, state regulated, and often institutionally regulated,” she noted. In fact, a special committee must interrogate and approve every protocol for the animal under a stringent set of regulations. “It’s quite surprising when I tell people that the animals under the care of most biomedical institutions are actually more cared for and they have more eyes on them.”

While Deborah was initially shocked to learn she had won this award (“my impostor syndrome kicked in and said this can’t be right, there must be another Deborah Calantropio-Covington in the world!” she joked), her surprise was soon replaced with a sense of validation, self-confidence, and humility. “We spend a lot of our lives thinking that people don’t like us—and this award, to me, validates that it’s not true,” she said. “I hope that my winning this award can help others understand that they can win it, too. This is not an unattainable award. You can make meaningful changes and have a meaningful impact on people, just as you are, by loving what you do, and by doing it well.”