J. PRESTON VAN HOOSER: FOUNDER/CO-CHAIR

Preston is a Review Scientist and Compliance Manager in the Office of Animal Welfare at the University of Washington (UW). He has experience in both industry and academia as a researcher, principal investigator, CEO, IACUC administrator, research integrity officer, and IACUC member. For the past twenty years, Preston has worked in his current role to protect the integrity and excellence of vertebrate animal research and teaching at the UW. In more recent years, with regards to compassion fatigue, he is the Founder and Co-Chair of the UWs Dare 2 Care (D2C) Compassion in Science program which provides support and resources for personnel that care and work with research animals, an area often overlooked in the field of lab animal science.

Preston earned his BS in Zoology from the College of Idaho, Caldwell, ID, and began his research career in 1991 (UW Department of Ophthalmology) where his research efforts led to numerous professional publications and the restoration of sight in a mouse model of Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), a rare inherited eye disease that appears early in life. He serves on several boards, including the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research (NWABR), is a member of several national professional organizations including AALAS and PRIM&R, and is the Founder & CEO of InVision BioResources, a Seattle based Biotech Company that provides incidental ocular tissues to the vision research community, globally, in the spirit of the 3R’s.