Rate My Professor Stefan Niewiesk

Stefan Niewiesk is a Professor in the Department of Veterinary Biosciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine, The Ohio State University. He earned his DVM from the Veterinary School in Hannover, Germany, a PhD from the University of Würzburg, Germany, and completed a Habilitation at the same institution. Niewiesk is a Diplomate of the European College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ECLAM) and holds German specialist certifications as Fachtierarzt für Versuchstierkunde and Fachtierarzt für Mikrobiologie. His research specializes in the pathogenesis of infections in the respiratory tract caused by human respiratory viruses, the development of vaccines and antivirals against these viruses, and the creation of animal models such as cotton rats and humanized mice for studying infectious diseases and cancer. He is a member of key university centers including the Center for Retrovirus Research, Infectious Disease Institute, Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Graduate Program.

In addition to his research, Niewiesk contributes to education by teaching virology in the veterinary medical professional curriculum and graduate programs, as well as providing leadership training and coaching. He has previously served as Chair of the Department of Veterinary Biosciences and has published extensively on academic leadership topics. Notable publications include 'Who Leads the Leaders? The Dean's Role in Chair Development' (Dean & Provost, 2025, with Gates Garrity-Rokous), 'Managing for Departmental Success' (The Department Chair, 2025), 'How to measure performance of the department chair' (The Department Chair, 2024), 'Defeating the Peter Principle in Academic Leadership' (Inside HigherEd, 2023), 'Faculty turnover: it's preventable' (The Department Chair, 2023), and 'The Academic Leadership Framework: A Guide for Systematic Assessment and Improvement of Academic Administrative Work' (Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 2021). His biomedical research is documented in numerous PubMed-indexed journals. Niewiesk was a finalist for Ohio State's 2021 Innovator of the Year award alongside Jianrong Li.