Celebrating Our Colleagues - Dr Lidwien Verdegaal

Dr Lidwien Verdegaal, Senior Lecturer Equine Medicine, Associate Head of School – International, School of Animal and Veterinary Science
Dr Lidwien Verdegaal’s adventurous spirit has taken her from veterinary practice in the Netherlands to Jordan’s Royal Jafaar Stables, saving bushfire-stricken animals and making ground-breaking discoveries about equine athletes. Growing up on a farm in the southern Netherlands, Lidwien was a “pony girl” at school, with a natural affinity for all animals but especially horses.
Her future path was set early - “I can remember the day!” - when she completed work experience at a large animal practice at the age of 14.
What she did not foresee were the twists and turns on her journey to academia, that brought her to Roseworthy College in 2011 when the University of Adelaide’s veterinary school was in its infancy and led to her “proudest achievement” - earning her PhD in 2022. Lidwien was awarded her double degree Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Adelaide and Ghent University, Belgium, for her research into thermoregulation, heat illness and metabolic disorders.
Her work has a worldwide impact on how heat stress is managed in real-life equine sport, racing conditions and during transportation in hot weather.
Today, Lidwien is warmly enthusiastic about teaching and research, and loves her foothills family home among the gum trees, with space for her own menagerie of dogs and horses.
She is also committed to advocacy as a member of Vets for Climate Action, recently receiving a joint award for a collaborative article on the effects of climate change on the equine industry spanning bushfires, flooding, heat-related illness, and insect-borne diseases.
“I feel both here and there is home,’’ she says of South Australia and the Netherlands, where she completed her veterinary science studies at Utrecht University.
During her residency, Lidwien worked in the NICU for foals, requiring round-the-clock vigils. It was a compelling yet tough experience for young practitioners, and for students entrusted with being part of “foal watch”.
“It’s very intense. Not all the foals survive, but with dedication you can have some good outcomes,’’ she recalls.
The lessons of the NICU stood Lidwien in good stead as she pursued her career as a Boarded Specialist in Equine Internal Medicine (Dip ECEIM) in Europe and then the Middle East, where she developed a fascination with the effects of extreme heat on horses, later informing her PhD thesis.

Horse riding in Montana after a workshop on equine performance and new technologies.
Lidwien greatly enjoyed her time in Jordan, on staff at the Royal Jafaar Stud, owned by King Abdullah II’s sister, Princess Zein, who was “pretty down to earth’’ with a passion for the demanding sport of endurance riding.
“This was very special, to care for these elite horses,’’ Lidwien says of her experiences with the royal family’s “exquisite and intelligent’’ Arabians and well as Bedouin desert horses.
She was a member of the Jordanian and Kuwaiti endurance and showjumping committees for the International Federation for Equestrian Sports – whose #TwoHearts ethos celebrates the unique bond between horse and human.
Lidwien’s work on a team establishing a new equine referral hospital in Kuwait set the stage for her next big move to University of Adelaide’s School of Animal and Veterinary Science at Roseworthy.
“The great challenge of combining hospital work, teaching vet students and research was the big drawcard,’’ says Lidwien, who considers herself a late starter in the academic world, but has flourished, winning awards including the John Bourke Literary Prize.
A searing initiation into South Australia’s harshest side, with the Pinery Bushfires in 2015, combined with her experiences in the Middle East, including a serious stable fire in Kuwait, honed her expertise in equine burns triage and critical care.
“The way the community all came together during the bushfires was amazing, from people volunteering to businesses making donations,’’ Lidwien says of the catastrophe that burned an estimated 82,500 hectares, claiming human and animal lives, and destroying 91 homes.

Checking a giraffe heartbeat – one of Lidwien’s favourite international experiences.
Lidwien and her team at Roseworthy’s Equine Health and Performance Centre worked around the clock to save terrified and suffering horses. Once triaged, cooling them was imperative, then painstaking wound cleaning and bandaging.
“There were power cuts, as you have in a disaster, so no one could call ahead. The horses just showed up, brought in by traumatised people, some of whom had just lost their houses,’’ she recalls.
“It was very hard to see the horses suffer. It’s an hour-by-hour thing, their condition just changes. But more survived than we expected and we learned a lot.’’
The team’s unwavering commitment and service earned them a Dean’s Commendation.
In the ensuing years, Lidwien has collaborated with other experts to develop learnings into bushfire protocols for equine practitioners.
In November, she will present a paper, covering bushfire findings from Pinery, Black Friday in Victoria and Perth, Western Australia, to the European College of Equine Internal Medicine Congress in Liverpool, UK.
South Australia, with its intense summers, has proved a fertile ground for Lidwien’s investigations into exertional heat-related illness.
“My research is very practical and applicable to prevent heat stress and take care of horse welfare,’ she says.
Through ground-breaking monitoring of metabolic heat build-up in horses, she has discovered that equine athletes have markedly individual responses, putting some at greater risk, just like their human counterparts.

At Bonython Hall after receiving her PhD.
Ultimately, this will allow scientists to determine biomarkers and establish general rules to prevent heat-related illness, perhaps issuing horses with biomedical passports.
Lidwien is proud of the culture of excellence in teaching and research at Roseworthy, where she delights in passing on her skills and love of learning to future veterinarians.
“There’s a great community under [Head of School] Professor Rob Woodgate’’ she says. “I appreciate the opportunity to be authentic and approachable as a teacher.’’
And having travelled the world to build her own knowledge and networks, from Bolivia and Brazil to the US, Lidwien is eager to encourage students to do the same, pointing to valuable current Roseworthy exchange programs with Ghent University.
“Opportunities to travel and study globally are everywhere,’’ says Lidwien, who is on a mission to Vietnam this week in her position as the Associate Head of School – International.
“My advice to students is ‘be curious’. You will learn about yourself as well as other cultures.’’
Written by Jackie Tracy, Communications Coordinator.