Kathleen Alexander, DVM, PhD

Dr. Kathleen Alexander has been conducting research in East and Southern Africa for more than 20 years. She has worked for the Government of Botswana as both the chief of the Wildlife Veterinary Unit in the Department of Wildlife and National Parks and later as the ecological advisor to the Office of the President of Botswana and the Attorney Generals Chambers. She has spent most of her professional life working with local communities integrating scientific approaches with traditional understanding in order to identify interventions for improved rural livelihoods. She is a member of both the World Conservation Union's Wildlife Health Specialist Group as well as the Commission for Ecosystem Management. In 2007, she moved to Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech, where she continues to conduct research in her long-term Botswana study site on the dynamics of emerging infectious disease at the human-animal interface. Dr. Alexander earned both her PhD and veterinary degree from University of California, Davis.