Keren Dittmer

Keren Elizabeth Dittmer is a New Zealand academic, and is professor of veterinary pathology at Massey University, specialising in animal skeletal pathology, vitamin D, and genetic diseases.

Academic career
Dittmer holds a Bachelor of Veterinary Science from Massey University, and also completed a PhD at the same university in 2008. Her doctoral thesis investigated inherited rickets in Corriedale sheep. Dittmer then joined the faculty of Massey, rising to full professor in 2023.

Dittmer's research focuses on bone diseases in animals, vitamin D deficiency and genetic diseases. Dittmer has researched the cause of humeral fractures in dairy heifers. She has also conducted research into dropped hock syndrome in cattle, and the repurposing of older drugs for squamous cell cancer treatment in cats and dogs.

Dittmer is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, qualified as a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists in 2011, and as of 2024 is the president of the New Zealand Society for Veterinary Pathology.

Dittmer has written chapters in seven text books, including two of the main veterinary pathology reference texts, on bone pathology and bone tumours. She also authored an update of the WHO classification of bone and cartilage tumours.

Awards and honours
Dittmer is part of the Variant Discovery Team, which won the Hill Lab Primary Industries award at the Kudos Awards in December 2023. The Kudos Awards "honour educators, scientists and innovators who have embraced technology as a catalyst for progress". She was also part of a veterinary pathology teaching team that won a teaching award.