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As a wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Kirsten Gilardi has developed programs to protect and conserve wildlife and ecosystems, working on initiatives carried out at the interface between wildlife, people and the environment.

On Friday, January 18, Dr. Gilardi will talk about wildlife veterinary medicine as a discipline and practice, and argue for the relevance of One Health as the lens through which wildlife health has been addressed for many decades.  She will discuss her work as the U.S. Director for Gorilla Doctors, an organization that is taking a One Health approach to the conservation of wild eastern gorillas.   Dr. Gilardi will also talk about the objectives and implementation of several of the wildlife health initiatives of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center (WHC) at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, including the SeaDoc Society and the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT project.   

Dr. Gilardi is a wildlife veterinarian and Co-Director of the WHC – a research, service and teaching Center of Excellence.  She is the US Director of Gorilla Doctors, an international team of veterinarians providing life-saving care to wild eastern gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda and DR Congo. She earned her DVM at UC Davis in 1993, completed a residency in Medical Primatology at the California National Primate Research Center, and joined the staff of the WHC in 1998. In 2001, she became board-certified by the American College of Zoological Medicine, and she is a past President of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians.