About Us

Staff

 

Dr. Chris Walzer is the Exec. Director of Health at the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is a board-certified wildlife veterinarian, professor of Conservation Medicine at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria. Author of more than 120 peer-reviewed research publications, numerous book chapters, lecturing widely on health and conservation. During the past two decades he has worked in the Gobi region of Mongolia linking wildlife health with the conservation of the Przewalski’s horse and the Asiatic wild ass. Beyond central Asia and equids, Chris has an internationally recognized diverse expertise in working with wildlife, especially on the human-livestock-wildlife interfaces, gained from combined years of leadership and research in Europe, Asia and Africa. His work has recently focused on the nexus of emerging zoonotic-origin pathogens environmental encroachment and the commercial wildlife trade. He acts as a consultant in wildlife matters for various organizations such as UNDP, World Bank, FAO and WWF. Over the past decade he has additionally led several successful large-scale EU-funded ecological connectivity and biodiversity conservation projects in the Alps. Chris is the recipient of several research and service awards most notably the Distinguished Environmentalist Award from the Mongolian Ministry of Nature and Environment for contributions to the conservation of Mongolia's rare and endangered species.

 

Sarah Olson joined WCS in 2011 and is currently the Director of Health Research for the Health Program. She received a joint PhD in Population Health and Environment & Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied how deforestation and climate affect malaria incidence in the Amazon. Based in Bozeman, Montana, she provides leadership and research support to field veterinarians and conservation staff around the world. Trained in environmental research and public health, her research with WCS has focused on front-line conservation and wildlife health challenges, including the wildlife trade and emerging infectious diseases, Ebola virus disease ecology in great apes and bats, avian influenza in wild birds, and white-nose syndrome in North American bats. She is currently focused on understanding and mitigating wildlife health and zoonotic disease threats, often associated with anthropogenic drivers, and helping grow sustainable and effective wildlife health surveillance systems.

 

Amanda Fine is the Director of One Health at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). She has 20 years of experience working in Asia, first based in Mongolia as WCS Country Program Director, and more recently in Viet Nam overseeing WCS health initiatives in the Southeast Asia region. Amanda led WCS’s engagement in USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threat Program’s PREDICT Project and supported the development of the WildHealthNet initiative which is currently building national wildlife disease surveillance capacity and networks across Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia. Amanda has a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Veterinary Epidemiology from Michigan State University. During her career Amanda has led a series of interdisciplinary “One Health” initiatives focused on the management of disease at the interface of human, livestock, and wildlife health with projects and research focused on zoonotic viruses, avian influenza in wild birds, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in wild and domestic ungulates, bovine tuberculosis, and Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) virus at the wildlife/livestock interface.

 

Dr. Lucy Keatts is a veterinarian and Senior One Health Advisor with the WCS Health Program. Lucy graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 2003, with a specialization in Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine and has since worked as a wildlife veterinarian in the Caribbean, UK, India, Vietnam, Lao P.D.R., Cambodia and the United States. Lucy holds a Masters in Veterinary Conservation Medicine from the University of Edinburgh. She became driven to work on the risks that wildlife trade and other anthropogenic activities pose to human and animal health, and their associations with disease emergence, whilst working in wildlife rescue in Southeast Asia just as the SARS-Coronavirus emerged from a Chinese wildlife market. Lucy has been with WCS since 2009, supporting a variety of wildlife health efforts, including studying interactions at the wildlife-human-livestock interface, wildlife trade surveys, conducting surveillance for avian influenza and emerging pathogens through the PREDICT project, and leading Health Program communications. Lucy is passionate about promoting collaborative, interdisciplinary One Health approaches through a conservation lens, with recognition that human, animal, plant and environmental health and well-being are all intrinsically connected.

 

Dr. Diego Montecino-Latorre is a veterinarian from Chile who completed his Masters of Preventive Veterinary Medicine and PhD in epidemiology at UC Davis. These degrees were possible thanks to two full scholarpships from the Chilean Goverment. Diego has conducted research regarding infectious diseases in several wildlife populations, for example, West Nile Virus in crow roosts, sarcoptic mange in foxes in Chile and in California, wasting disease in sea stars from the West Coast of North America, and dynamics of Coronaviruses in bat populations from East and West Africa. Moreover, Diego studied the impacts of free-ranging dogs in Chileans small scale farmers as a proxy for their impacts in wildlife populations. Before joining WCS, Diego was a postdoc at PSU building spatial statistical bayesian models to inform the PA Game Commission the distribution of areas with high and low abudance of West Nile Vectors. He is now the Wildlife Health Data Scientist and Manager following his interest and proficiency in Wildlife Health and Conservation, and data analysis.

 

Alex Vignali completed his Master’s Degree in Public Administration at Binghamton University, before beginning his ambition of a career in the non-profit sector. He is now the Business and Grants Manager for the Wildlife Health program. His prior work has involved working for large grant-making organizations, cultural institutions, and a philanthropy consulting firm, which has provided Alex with levels of experience in grant management, financial management, and more.

 

Mathieu received his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) in France, where he is originally from. During his veterinary education, he specialized in veterinary epidemiology and was involved in a variety of research projects in Burkina Faso, Nepal, and Thailand. Mathieu completed his MSc in epidemiology and biostatistics in France and at UC Davis, CA. In 2014, he completed his PhD at the University of Calgary, AB, Canada, on assessing the risk of pathogen transmission between cattle and wild elk. His interest in the role of anthropogenic ecosystem changes on disease emergence led Mathieu to join the WCS Health Program in 2014 as a project lead based in Cambodia for four years, working in both Cambodia and Laos on piloting national wildlife health surveillance networks, and conducting research on the effects of wildlife trade and land-use change on disease emergence. Mathieu continued his work with the Health Program on identifying drivers of zonotic disease emergence, improving wildlife disease surveillance network in Southeast Asia, supporting Mongolian Saiga health monitoring and protection, and improving global capacity for early widllife outbreak detection via collaboration with the SMART consortium. Today, Mathieu is based at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, as assistant professor, and and continues supporting WCS Health Program projects and activities.

 

Joey was born and raised in the Bronx and received an Art & Advertising design degree from New York City College of Technology after graduating from the reputable Cardinal Hayes. He worked mostly in the textile, design and furniture industry, including the prestigious Pacific Design Center in California as a showroom manager, before moving back to east cost and joining WCS in 2008. Joey now handles program, logistics, and administrative support including foreign country animal specimen importation for the Health Programs.

 

Emily completed her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Guelph and also holds a Master of Public Health degree. She has worked with an array of both domestic and wild species on a clinical level in North America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. While completing her MPH, she worked at the human-wildlife interface with Docs4GreatApes and Gorilla Doctors building capacity in frontline healthcare workers in Rwanda. Emily is involved in One Health initiatives globally as an active member of the Program Development Committee for Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires sans frontières. She enjoys teaching and was recruited in 2019 to develop undergraduate courses in One Health for students at the University of Guelph. In 2019, Emily joined WCS and the Wildlife Health Program as the Veterinary Technical Advisor for Laos. She has a passion for conservation medicine and is driven to protect the health of both wildlife and humans by finding solutions using a One Health lens.