Margaret R. Slater, DVM
 Senior Director Veterinary Epidemiology

Dr. Slater’s work has been in the areas of health and disease in companion animals, including arthritis, questionnaire evaluation and pet overpopulation. She has been invited to speak at numerous local, regional and national animal welfare meetings. 

Dr. Slater is internationally recognized for her work on the sources, problems and potential solutions for free-roaming cats and dogs. Dr. Slater currently provides epidemiological and statistical support for staff across the ASPCA. Her present projects range from mapping shelter data to reduce intake to determining if a cat in a shelter is feral or frightened to studying the population dynamics of community cats. She is on the International Advisory Council Science Advisory & Product Development Committee of the Alliance for Contraception in Cat and Dogs.

Dr. Slater has more than 115 peer-reviewed publications and 2 books. Her first book, Community Approaches to Feral Cats: Problems, Alternatives, and Recommendations, was published by the Humane Society Press in 2002. Her second book Veterinary Epidemiology: an Evidence-based Approach published in 2003 describes the process of using the veterinary literature to bring new science into veterinary practice. She has also authored a chapter on the behavioral ecology of free-roaming cats for Animal Behavior for Veterinarians and Shelter Staff, a new shelter behavior text.  Her invited chapters on feral cats were published in John August’s Consultations in Feline Internal Medicine in 2001 (4^th ed) and 2009 (6^th ed), The Welfare of Cats, in 2004 edited by Irene Rochlitz and The State of the Animals III, 2005 published by Humane Society Press.