Jonna Mazet, DVM, MPVM, PhD
Professor and Director
Wildlife Health Center

Dr. Jonna Mazet is a Professor of Wildlife Health and Epidemiology and Director of the Wildlife Health Center at UC Davis where her research focuses on the development and application of epidemiological techniques for the conservation of threatened ecosystems. Her research program especially focuses on the impacts of infectious diseases and toxins on wildlife populations with three major areas of emphasis: ecology of infectious diseases, coastal ecosystem health and wildlife diagnostics and disease surveillance. She graduated from the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 1992 and went on to complete Master and PhD degrees in wildlife epidemiology also at UC Davis. She has developed and participated in California’s Oiled Wildlife Care Network since its founding and was initially its director when she worked for California Department of Fish and Game. She has made significant contributions to the development of the School of Veterinary Medicine’s and the profession’s emphasis on ecosystem health, especially as it relates to public health. Jonna also provides wildlife health and epidemiologic services to state and federal agencies including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Geological Survey, National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission. Jonna also teaches Conservation Biology, Epidemiology, and Animal Health Policy and Communication in the veterinary and Master of Preventive Veterinary Medicine curricula at UC Davis and mentors wildlife conservation graduate students.

Tracey Goldstein, PhD
Researcher
Marine Diagnosics Laboratory, UC Davis

Tracey obtained her PhD at the University of California, Davis studying phocine herpesviral infections in harbor seals and following that completed two post doctoral training opportunities: at The Alaska Sealife Center focusing on population health and disease in Steller sea lions and sea otters and at The Marine Mammal Center, examining the sublethal effects of domoic acid on California sea lion health. She is current in a research position at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center studying the effects of infectious and non-infectious disease in marine mammal populations.

Frances Gulland, Vet. MB, MRCVS, PhD
Director of Veterinary Science
The Marine Mammal Center

Frances Gulland is Director of Veterinary Science at The Marine Mammal Center, a hospital and research center for stranded marine mammals. She is a veterinarian focusing on treating and understanding the epidemiology and pathogenesis of diseases of seals and sea lions.

Studies related to OHHI:

• Role of contaminants in the etiology of cancer in California sea lions.
• Effects of domoic acid on California sea lions. Prevalence of zoonotic bacteria in pinnipeds.

Christine Kreuder Johnson, VMD, MPVM, PHD
Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Health and Epidemiology
UC Davis Wildlife Health Center

Dr. Kreuder Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Ecosystem Health and Epidemiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis. Her research activities have focused on marine animal population health, factors influencing survival, and causes of mortality, with a special focus on harmful algal blooms. Ongoing projects utilize a trans-disciplinary ecosystem-level approach to understanding processes promoting disease in sentinel marine species. Her most recent research and graduate student training efforts have sought to bridge the gap between wildlife health and public health by creating a surveillance program for zoonotic diseases that are emerging at the wild animal-human interface.

Kathi Lefebvre, PhD
NOAA Fisheries
Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA

Dr. Lefebvre is a lead investigator on the Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) project and is a member of the Marine Biotoxins Group at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the leader of the Marine Biotoxins Analytical Team. Her research focuses on the impacts of harmful algal blooms on early life history stages of planktivorous fish populations, including trophic transfer of algal toxins through marine food webs to higher level consumers via planktivorous fish vectors, the dynamics of toxin accumulation, uptake, and tissue distribution in fish vector species under various bloom conditions, neurotoxic effects of dietary intake of algal toxins in fish, and sublethal developmental and neurosensory effects of aqueous toxin exposure in early embryonic and larval stages.