Fernando Torres-Velez

Fernando Torres-Velez, DVM, Ph.D., fell in love with pathology as an undergraduate student volunteering with marine mammal necropsies during a summer experience on his home island of Puerto Rico. If you’ve ever smelled a dead dolphin, you can imagine what an amazing mentor he must have had! He knew early on in veterinary school that clinical practice was not for him and that he wanted to pursue advanced training in research. With diverse and broad-reaching experience spanning a CDC postdoc, a pathology residency, and Ph.D., NIH funded research, and Directing the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Plum Island, Fernando now leads research efforts on Guinea Worm Eradication for The Carter Center. We really appreciated Fernando’s genuine reflections on his life path, successes and disappointments, challenging job positions, and how to find balance as a professional, a dad, and a husband.

Veterinary School & Year Graduated: Tuskegee University, 2000

Additional Degree: Ph.D., University of Georgia, 2009

Questions and Answers

Tell me about your most challenging and rewarding veterinary jobs or work experiences.
There are three job experiences that come to mind. The first one was when I was in Georgia after I got my NIH K08 grant. I was hired as an assistant researcher and I established the Culebra Conservation Medicine Project, which was a project mostly working with sea turtles in my hometown of Puerto Rico. It was very rewarding because we trained and mentored a lot of students, not only from UGA but also from the University of Puerto Rico. This project also gave me an opportunity to work with endangered species back in my home. Itt was a very fulfilling and rewarding experience. The challenging piece was that all my collaborators were friends. These were all people that I went to school within Puerto Rico and I had friendships with that preceded this project. I really struggled managing expectations and accountability with friends. The other challenge with that position was adapting my own culture to the principal investigator's point of view in terms of getting things done and managing deadlines. It was supposed to be a four-year project, potentially more than that, but I had to pull out.

However, it was also a very rewarding experience because I had the opportunity to work extensively internationally, improving animal health systems in the developing world. I was able to contribute to domestic and international policies and mentor a lot of students and young professionals which made it very rewarding.

At the Carter Center, I've been given this huge challenge to develop a research agenda to stop transmission of Guinea warm among domestic animals in five African countries. There has been very little research done and that is coming back to bite us, however, there is also huge satisfaction in being part of that process and helping to eradicate a disease. We're in the business of stopping human suffering, and I feel very good about being able to contribute to that from the animal side while also stopping animal suffering. COVID-19 has also been a challenge for me because the whole pandemic started a month after I started at the Carter Center. Working remotely has been quite a challenge in itself.

Another challenging experience I had was at Plum Island. It was often challenging because of the nature and sensitivities associated with a suspect case in the US mainland, a border point of entry, or even at a trade partner country. Also, the day-to-day operations in a 60-year-old facility isolated on an island involved a lot of inter-agency agreements and interaction. There are three agencies on Plum Island so the time spent in interagency coordination and negotiation could be overwhelming.
What did you love about the position or experience?
I really enjoy the human dimension of mentoring students and young veterinary professionals. I truly loved the staff at Plum Island. It was a very unique place where the staff was so passionate and their commitment to the mission was overwhelming and contagious. All these people come together to work effectively with little guidance and achieve extremely high performance and quality of work. At Plum Island, the job was so stimulating and had so many layers. I truly never had two days the same; every day was different. I loved the diversity of work. Also, experiences like diving in the Caribbean trapping sea turtles are a highlight.
Tell me about your journey to get to that point in your life.
I fell in love with pathology when I was an undergrad in Puerto Rico, volunteering as a marine mammal necropsy assistant. I had such an amazing passionate teacher that any dreadful foul smell of rot and carcasses disappeared instantly. I fell in love with the field of investigation and figuring out why these animals died. I was lucky enough that that happened to be with whales, dolphins, and sea turtles. I went to the University of Puerto Rico for two years and then I transferred to Fort Collins, Colorado CSU. I was there for three years before getting into vet school at Tuskegee. Most of my mentors actually were Tuskegee grads so I had a bias towards Tuskegee. In vet school I discovered research and epidemiology and by second year, I already knew that I was not into private practice and that I wanted to pursue further training after vet school. It was challenging because I had this amazing mentor in Puerto Rico, who I’d worked with for many years. She was about to retire and she had a small animal practice and was hopeful that I was going to go and take over. But I felt that I really wanted to pursue more training and explore research and pathology.

When I was finishing the postdoc at CDC, I was looking for my next position. I had to make the decision between the New England Primate Center at Harvard and UGA. I got a lot of fire from a lot of people for not choosing Harvard. I love to tell the story because I look back and I think what a great decision it was not to go to Harvard. I got a grant from NIH for five years to work on a joint project between CDC and the University of Georgia studying Nipah virus in guinea pigs. I stayed with UGA and CDC for about nine years in total. Then I found myself at the NIH pursuing a path of high consequence pathogens.

My experience at NIH was short and very enlightening for three reasons. First, once I was hired, the expectations and resources significantly changed and I found myself running an entire lab mostly by myself. So I burned out pretty quick. Since then, I have learned that this is a common situation for recent graduates. The second reason was that I realized that I do not like to work with non-human primates, especially in a high biocontainment facility. The third reason was that professional development was not a priority for the leadership at that time. It was made clear to me that there were not going to be any opportunities like that for at least the next two years after I was hired. So, I found myself looking for a new job after a year and a half at NIH.

I really wanted to go back and align myself with transboundary animal diseases, international work, and management. I ended up at Plum Island as the head of the Reagents and Vaccines Services section at the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL) of the USDA. I was in that position for a year and then I was appointed as Director which I did for five years. My tenure at Plum Island aligned well with my family life. My husband was pursuing residency training at a relatively commutable distance from Plum Island. Everything worked out during that time. And I say, fortunately, because that's a huge challenge for couples where both are professionals trying to find fulfilling and meaningful jobs. My husband finished his residency, we had a baby, and he was offered a position with the CDC, stationed in the New York State Department of Health in Albany. We were very lucky that we were able to negotiate some spousal accommodation and the Department of Health created a two-year position for me to support infectious disease research.It was a nice two-year break from management. I just got to focus on research projects and mentoring graduate students.

In vet school, I did several research projects and I think that that helped me secure positions following graduation. Right after vet school, I went to the pathology branch of the CDC for a two year postdoc in emerging infectious diseases and I had the opportunity to work on research and diagnostics with Ebola and babesia. That's how I fell in love with emerging high-consequence pathogens and I followed that path through my PhD. After my position at CDC, I went to the University of Georgia for a residency and Ph.D. in pathology.

When I re-entered the job market I got the opportunity of a lifetime and was offered a position at the OIE in Paris as the head of science. When I got that offer, I was trying to figure out a job for my husband in Paris. After four months of a lot of work, we were not able to find a job for my husband and we decided to stay. We moved to Atlanta because my husband was relocated by the CDC and we thought that they were going to be a lot of good prospects for me because of my previous work experience. CDC organizational culture proved to be very closed with limited opportunities for new senior leadership to come from outside. I probably applied to over 25 positions in a year, including positions way below my previous pay grade. I interviewed for some but it was clear that the culture was to hire from the inside for those high-level or senior leadership positions. That actually pushed me to start looking into academia and other places and I came across the Carter Center. I interviewed and it’s one of those places that you fall in love with just in the interview. And I realized that I not only fit very well in this team, but I could have a good amount of global impact because I am the only veterinarian at the Carter Center. After the interview, I talked to the director, who was actually conducting fieldwork in Ethiopia at the time, and that sealed the deal.
As a veterinary student, did you ever imagine yourself taking this journey and having these professional experiences?
Short answer, no. I can remember being in high school and thinking, I want to go and practice small animal medicine. I started working with a small animal practitioner in Puerto Rico and her husband was a dairy cattle vet. I worked with both and that was what I thought I wanted to do.
In retrospect, what do you wish you’d known as a veterinary student or early in your career?
I wish I had known that my predominant learning style is auditory. I learn more by listening than by reading. That would have saved me a lot of time in vet school reading. Now when I'm in meetings or in a conference, I take very few notes and instead really just focus on listening and take my notes at the end. I also wish I had known the importance of networking, effective communication, and good sleep. I really learned the importance of networking early in my career.
Would you have changed anything about your time in veterinary school?
At the end of the day, I don't know if I would have changed anything because if I had, maybe I wouldn’t be where I am today. I truly had an amazing experience in vet school and I had really good mentors.
Would you have changed anything about your career path since graduating?
When I was considering pulling out of the Culebra project I did not follow the advice of my mentor, Dr. Corrie Brown. She told me the pros and the cons and told me to decide what to do. I canceled the project and we had to return a lot of grant money back to the funder. That was tough. If I could change something in my career, I would change that. I was professionally immature at that point and I think that with the knowledge I have now I probably could have managed better and finished the project.
Did you have any mentors or role models along the way that helped or inspired you? Please provide an example of how they helped you or what qualities they had that made them a good mentor? How did you find them?
I want to start by saying that mentorship relationships cannot be forced. There is some element of chemistry that needs to exist to be successful. In my opinion, mentorship should be a lifelong commitment. I look back and I am still in touch with almost all of the mentors I’ve had. One quality that I look for in a mentor is someone that is not only interested in developing my technical and soft skills, but also has some level of interest in my personal life. I appreciate mentors who are kind, humble, down-to-earth, and passionate about teaching. I have been lucky in that I gravitate to people that have allowed me to develop myself as an individual, without forcing their research, technical, or professional values onto me.
Tell me about any pivotal moments or key turning points that shaped your career.
In 2005 I was in Greece to train veterinarians from the Middle East, including Gaza and the West Bank. It was an overwhelming experience to have such a heterogeneous group. It was a religion and politics-free environment where science, animal health, and public health were the common languages and interests for us to work together. It was a very unique and enlightening experience. The next year, I spent two weeks in Afghanistan helping rebuild the animal health system and training veterinarians and animal health officials. I find it difficult to explain how among all of this devastation of war, there was so much humility, a sense of hope, and even a great sense of humor. I learned about the amount of impact you can have by being a veterinarian and how that impact can reach not only a good amount of people but an entire country. That realization was very overwhelming to me at the time.
Tell me about one or two challenges, setbacks or obstacles that you faced along the way on your professional journey. How did you address those?
When I realized that I learn information through kinetic and tonal cues, rather than visual cues, it was a challenge because I love pathology and I love to see the slides. It took me some time to learn the difference between abilities and skills. What I learned is that you can pursue and do things that don’t necessarily align with your strengths, but it will take you more time and energy. That was hard to swallow. Proper mentorship helped me to realize that my abilities are bringing people together, leading people, and building programs. That's what I needed to focus on and that's what I do. Another thing to note, without naming organizations, is that I think being placed in a toxic and unethical work environment can be very challenging, especially for recent grads. When you come out of vet school you have all of these ideas and energy and being placed in a toxic environment can be very detrimental. I developed my own strategy that I still use today. If I feel like I am working in a toxic environment and if after two years I don't see any potential for the environment changing or me helping to change that environment, I leave. I leave because changing a toxic culture is a long-term project that requires a lot of energy and resources from the top to bottom. Another challenge, one that I encountered at Plum Island, was dealing with interagency communication and coordinating with three different agencies with different missions and different scope.
What was the most important lesson you learned as a veterinarian, and still remember today, and would want to tell vet students about.
Never compromise your ethics in your work. In multiple places, I have been faced with situations where I was strongly advised to follow the wrong path, including breaking protocol and the inhumane treatment of animals. I really had to stick to my guns and do the right thing. It can be so easy to compromise and follow what you’ve been told by supervisors but I think it’s so important that we stick to our moral code.
What’s been the biggest highlight of your career so far?
The teamwork that developed within FADDL from Plum Island during my time there was my greatest career achievement.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell me that you think would be helpful or relevant to veterinary students or early-career veterinarians?
Financial planning is very important and it's never too early to start thinking about it. I got my first financial advisor when I was a resident and that was a very good decision to help me manage my finances. Reassess your life every three to five years and have a plan and a vision of where you want to be. Another point I’d love to share is to mentor others as you wish to be mentored.