Our Veterinary Scholars Program supports future scientists

Animal Health

The Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Scholars Program offers young veterinary students early research experience and a new perspective on science, mentorship, and the interconnectedness of human and animal health.

Meet Thao Tran and Katelyn Kahler, veterinary medicine students finding their place in science with support from the Veterinary Scholars Program.

Before Thao Tran ever stepped into a U.S. laboratory, and before Katelyn Kahler first stood at a research bench, there was a program designed to do one simple thing well: give veterinary students a real entry point into scientific research..
The Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Scholars Program is a mentored summer research experience for early-stage veterinary students. Founded more than 35 years ago, it introduces first- and second-year students to hypothesis-driven biomedical research, close mentorship, and the interconnectedness of human and animal health—long before career paths are fixed.

Each summer, students join research teams in a variety of academic and public health settings, work on defined projects, and present their findings at the annual Veterinary Scholars Symposium. Many leave with more than new skills. They leave with a clearer sense of where veterinary science can take them—into academia, industry, public health, or all three.

A veterinary student’s first research experience

Early exposure like this is often a participant’s first real look at how research actually works. Seeing what research involves in practice can reshape how students think about a veterinary career.

Thao Tran is a final-year veterinary medicine student at Nong Lam University in Ho Chi Minh City, one of Vietnam’s oldest universities. During her studies, a career in research initially felt abstract, as veterinary medicine is traditionally seen as a clinical profession. Taking part in the program changed that, making research feel real and within reach.

Finding guidance through mentorship

Thao didn’t stop on her first day in a U.S. lab because she didn’t know what to do. She stopped because everything suddenly felt bigger than expected—the equipment, the pace, the confidence in the room. “I was scared of making mistakes,” she says. “I doubted myself.”

In Vietnam, the Veterinary Scholars Program can feel distant, a rare chance to see how research really happens. For Thao, it existed more as an idea than a concrete next step. In the summer of 2025, that door opened. What she found wasn’t certainty. It was permission to ask questions.

Thao Tran, a final-year veterinary student in Ho Chi Minh City, saw herself as part of the scientific process during the program, with a career in science within reach.

Back home, Thao had imagined veterinarians as clinicians. Research entered her thinking quietly, through reading papers for class and becoming fascinated not by results, but by how experiments are designed. During her scholar summer, she worked on alternatives to antibiotics—studying how beneficial gut bacteria and their metabolites can inhibit pathogens and improve animal health.

The science was complex. The setting unfamiliar. The doubt constant—until mentorship steadied her. “My mentor kept telling me I could do it,” she says. “Even when I thought I couldn’t.”

Along the way, Thao thought about the small shifts that slowly built confidence through doing. They shaped how she learned through uncertainty and how she came to see herself as part of the scientific process, day to day.

Exploring veterinary research beyond the clinic

That kind of confidence-building looks different for every student. Sometimes it begins with uncertainty, and sometimes it’s curiosity and paying close attention to what pulls you in.

Katelyn Kahler is a third-year Doctor of Veterinary Medicine student at Mississippi State University, originally from Alabama. She grew up with a love of animals, biology, and science, and always envisioned a career in the veterinary field. In college, she was introduced to research and found herself drawn to compiling questions, exploring hypotheses, and discovering what data can reveal.

Learning benchwork in vaccine research

Katelyn’s entry into research was similarly undefined. She didn’t arrive with a research résumé. “I didn’t have a lot of research experience prior to veterinary school,” she says. But she wanted to build benchwork and molecular skills. When she heard about a summer project developing a vaccine designed to induce strong mucosal immunity, she joined. This helps guard against pathogens that use mucosal surfaces as entry points. “Our hope is that the work we’ve done can have broad beneficial effects in public health—in veterinary and human settings,” she says.

Katelyn always imagined a future in veterinary medicine. Through Boehringer’s program, her interest in immunology deepened, and she began to see research and teaching as real career possibilities.

The program didn’t just teach techniques. It revealed a future: research, teaching, and clinical practice in an academic setting. Seeing a strong mucosal immune response in the project was exciting, and it deepened her interest in immunology. The work highlighted how veterinary research can have real impact in both veterinary and human medicine.

Katelyn summed up her experience into a few guiding ideas. They captured what she set out to learn and what mattered most in the work. Together, they reflect the mindset that helped her move forward when the research became challenging.

From veterinary school to research careers

Dr. Keith DeJong recognizes that moment immediately. Now a clinical field trial lead at our company—and once a Veterinary Scholar himself—he has watched generations of students arrive with narrow expectations and leave with wider maps. Students, he says, are especially good at asking what experts sometimes stop asking: Is this actually true? Does it still hold up? That questioning isn’t disruption. It’s the engine.

They’re not just students. They’re future colleagues.

Dr. Keith DeJong, clinical field trial lead at Boehringer Ingelheim

Across three perspectives, the pattern is the same: a summer that doesn’t hand out answers—but teaches people how to keep going when answers aren’t immediate. That is what the program has protected for more than 35 years: not only scientific skills, but the confidence to belong in the work.

Tran returned home with a decision. “I want to come back to the U.S. to pursue a PhD,” she says. “I want to become a researcher.”

The future of science rarely begins with certainty. It begins with someone brave enough to ask the next question.

Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Scholars Program

The mission of the Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Scholars Program is to provide an opportunity for veterinary schools to introduce first and second-year veterinary medical students to biomedical research. By providing a supportive environment in which students can experience research in an established laboratory, complemented by seminars and discussion groups on the scientific process, ethics, and research opportunities, the participants will gain insight into careers in biomedical research.

Shaping connections

We connect students, mentors and real research through our Veterinary Scholars Program. Hands-on projects culminate in a symposium that widens horizons and networks. Those ties endure—students become alumni, mentors and colleagues—strengthening a talent pipeline with interconnectedness of human and animal health. Its connection in action: curiosity supported, capability built, futures opened.