Besides Chiang Mai University being the first regional University of the country established according to the government's policy, it is also the first University with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Northern Thailand in order to meet the needs of veterinary resources and focus on producing quality graduates. Apart from this, it also aims to carry out its mission, which is to provide extension services to the society and produce veterinary research especially in large animals such as elephants, that CMU has always paid attention to elephants both in terms of elephant care and rescue missions, elephant conservation as well as conduct various researches at national and international academic cooperation levels. Therefore, it is a reason that the Center of Elephant and Wildlife Research has established including having a strong team of professors, researchers and veterinarians at Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University.
As a result, Expertscape, a ranking company specialising in biomedical sciences, ranked Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chatchote Thitaram, DVM from the Centre of Elephant and Wildlife Research, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, CMU, in the world’s top 1% (sixth place), joining the short list of ‘experts’ out of over 4,000 researchers in the field. The ranking was calculated based on the number of publications on elephants, with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chatchote Thitaram coming in at more than 5,000 papers on elephants published between 2011 – 2021 (both Asian and African) on PubMed. (https://expertscape.com/ex/elephant The team member of the center made the top 1% list on elephant research included Asst. Assist. Prof. Dr. Chaleamchat Somgird, DVM, Dr. Pakkanut Bansiddhi, DVM, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Korakot Nganvongpanit, DVM, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veerasak Punyapornwithaya, DVM, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kidsadagon Pringproa, DVM, and Assist. Prof. Dr. Jaruwan Khonmee, DVM.
The 1st place was Dr. Janine L. Brown from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, USA who has the most elephant publications in the world and received an honorary doctorate degree Veterinary Medicine from Chiang Mai University in early 2020.
From the previous success of the Elephant and Wildlife Research Center, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, team led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chatchote Thitaram, whether it was invented to collect elephant plasma by freezing method to save the life of an injured elephant in the first time in Thailand, Helping elephants in difficult situations Welfare care and communities that care for elephants including international academic cooperation National Elephant Academic Conference making and publishing research results. All this is the mission and intention of the veterinary team which is proof that CMU ready to be an important force in the conservation of Thai elephants to achieve sustainability and to be recognized internationally.