Dr. Stroud has enjoyed professional experiences in industry, academic research / teaching, private veterinary practice, and One Health. Completing her DVM in the first graduating Veterinary class at Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine, she worked briefly in small animal Veterinary practice before taking an MS and PhD in Endocrine Physiology at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She saw post-doctoral research across the Colleges of Science and Agriculture at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) studying variant molecular forms of prolactin and growth hormone, then served as an NIH National Institute of Aging Fellow establishing an endocrine lab to study reproductive cycles of women from populations around the world. She often laughs about being a Veterinarian with a PhD in basic endocrinology working in an Anthropology Department with human hormones. It was one of her first One Health experiences. She began following the One Health movement in 2007.

When Cheryl and her husband moved back to North Carolina at his retirement, she became instrumental in 2010 in creation of the North Carolina One Health Collaborative, chairing its Steering Committee for over three years and facilitating collaborative creation of an inter-institutional One Health course, One Health: Philosophy to Practical Integration of Human, Animal and Environmental Health, cross-listed at Duke University, the University of North Carolina and NC State University. 2017 saw the 7th successful year of this course offering.

Dr. Stroud was selected as AVMA representative to the One Health Commission in spring 2011, was appointed Vice Chair of the OHC Board in 2012 and became Executive Director late in 2013, moving the 501(c)3 organization from Iowa State to the Research Triangle Park region of central North Carolina. Her primary focus since 2010 has been educating locally, nationally and globally about One Health. She seeks, via her work with the One Health Commission, to connect One Health advocates into active One Health leadership teams, creating strategic networks and partnerships that educate about the full scope of and critical need for One Health. She dreams of a day when the global One Health community joins hands and unites in a true coordinated, Global One Health Alliance.

Cheryl and her husband have a grown son and daughter who still don’t ‘get’ their crazy mom. In her ‘spare’ time she enjoys horseback riding, gardening, hiking, writing, sewing, reading, making and listening to music, and traveling nationally and internationally.