Valentina Stevenson, DVM, PhD, DACVP

Valentina Stevenson, DVM, PhD, DACVP is an Assistant Professor of Anatomic Pathology at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, where she integrates diagnostic pathology, digital innovation, and translational cancer research. Board-certified by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists, Dr. Stevenson leads a research program that bridges comparative oncology and computational pathology to advance both veterinary and human cancer research. At the University of Florida, Dr. Stevenson has developed an AI-focused research portfolio centered on oncopathology and toxicologic pathology. She serves as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on multiple competitive grants, including projects supported by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. Her work emphasizes immune tolerance, metastatic mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and translational modeling of cancer.

Her laboratory leverages artificial intelligence, digital slide analysis, spatial transcriptomics, and molecular pathology techniques to identify clinically actionable tumor signatures. A major focus is the development and validation of AI-driven image analysis platforms to improve diagnostic objectivity and characterize tumor microenvironment complexity. Through collaborations within UF’s Veterinary Informatics Program and multidisciplinary cancer teams, she integrates histomorphology with spatial data to study naturally occurring canine cancers as translational models for human malignancies. Through the convergence of diagnostic expertise, computational innovation, and comparative oncology, Dr. Stevenson’s work aims to pave the way for the future of translational cancer pathology, where artificial intelligence and spatial biology inform precision diagnostics and therapeutic discovery across species.