Dr. Michael Zavy, Ph.D., - Embryologist of the Month
Dr. Michael T. Zavy is a Clinical Professor and Director of Laboratories at OU Reproductive Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, OK.
Dr. Zavy received his BS in Animal Science at Cornell University. He then moved to the University of Florida and worked in the laboratories of Dr. Dan Sharp and Dr. Fuller Bazer, where he received his MS in 1977 and Ph.D. degree in 1979, both in Reproductive Physiology specializing in endometrial-conceptus interactions during early pregnancy in domestic species. While at the University of Florida, he was chosen as the outstanding graduate student in the college of Agriculture (1977) and was a Morris Foundation pre-doctoral Fellow. He received an NIH post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School (1979-1982) in the Laboratory of Human Reproduction and Reproductive Biology studying the ultrastructure of the rabbit uterus.
After leaving Boston, he took the opportunity to work as a post-doctoral scientist working in the area of Gastro-intestinal physiology with the Smithkline Beckman Corporation where he worked with an established animal model to understand apocrine/paracrine relationships in the gut, which he later applied to the uterus. During 1983-1992, he was a supervising Research Physiologist at the USDA/ARS research laboratory in El Reno OK, where his research was focused on embryonic mortality in domestic species. He was an adjunct associate professor in the College of Agriculture in the Department of Animal Science and College of Veterinary Medicine in the Department of Physiological Sciences at Oklahoma State University and served on 4 Ph.D and 8 MS graduate committees.
In 1992, he moved to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center as an Associate Professor and Director of the Reproductive Laboratories while also overseeing management of the primate colony. In 1996, Zavy was tenured and promoted to Full professor. Shortly thereafter, he moved to the Center for Reproductive Health with his section chief, Gil Haas, MD to start a non-academic REI practice while maintaining an adjunct Clinical Professorship with the Department of Ob-Gyn. In 2009 he rejoined the faculty of the Ob-Gyn Department as a Clinical Professor and Director of the Reproductive Laboratories. He currently is the Laboratory Director with administrative and regulatory responsibilities and enjoys teaching and interacting with the REI Fellows.
Dr. Zavy has been board certified by the American Board of Bioanalysis as a high complexity laboratory director for 23 years. He is also certified as a Reproductive Embryologist (EMB) by the American College of Embryology. During his career, he has authored or co-authored 50 peer-reviewed articles, 13 book chapters and 2 patents. In conjunction with Dr. Rodney Geisert he co-edited the text “Embryonic mortality in domestic species”. He has also been the recipient of multiple research grants from national and state funding agencies.