August 4, 2022

The Clinton, New York Central School District Foundation Hall of Distinction is designed to recognize and celebrate graduates and retirees of the school district for their accomplishments as well as to inspire current students to future success. 
Graduates or retirees eligible for consideration will have exemplified the school district’s educational philosophy throughout their lives." There will be an induction ceremony in Clinton, NY on September 24, 2022.

Janice, daughter of Thomas A. and Joanne M. Telfer, and sister of distinguished Clinton Central School alumni Brian Telfer and Glenn Telfer, graduated in 1984 as the valedictorian of her class. The exceptional education she received from the dedicated educators at CCS, in addition to her national recognition for her activities in 4-H, allowed her to win a Reynolds Scholarship at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Reynolds Scholarship was a full scholarship covering tuition, room and board and a summer research project stipend. While at Wake Forest, Janice traveled to Ireland to research the history of Irish land use, to Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts to investigate cellular transport using video microscopy, and to Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, New York to study the role of the cytoskeleton in cancer. She also studied art and classics for a semester in Venice, Italy. After graduating with a BS in Biology from Wake Forest University in 1988, she earned a Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1995, and did post-doctoral training at Caltech in Pasadena, California. She gave birth to, and raised her two children, Alexander and Giselle, in the midst of her post-doctoral research and later, as she moved to North Carolina and Massachusetts to set up her own research program.

Janice started her academic career as an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and then moved to University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is currently a Professor and Undergraduate Program Director in the Department of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, as well as the Director of Pre-Veterinary Advising for the University. She has received over 4 million dollars in research grant funding, authored over 45 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, and won multiple awards, including the National Science Foundation Early Career Development award, the Armstrong Fund for Science award, and the UMass Amherst College of Natural Sciences Outstanding Service and Engagement award. Besides teaching and helping students achieve their dreams, she trains undergraduate and graduate students in her lab, and studies how the immune system has evolved in disparate species to meet the challenge of protecting animals from global emerging pathogens. Her research into recruiting previously underutilized immune cells in vaccine design has the ultimate goal of improving vaccines for both human and animals, which has the potential for saving millions of lives and improving the lot of humans and animals globally.