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OUR TEAM

Our Team

Established in 2012 by Dr. Deborah McCauley and Dr. Gretchen Kaufman, VIEW owes its success to it's stellar team of experts in veterinary science, academia, government, and corporate sectors. Over the past decade, we've garnered international recognition and forged strong partnerships, thanks to our dedicated team and string of volunteers.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

VIEW's governing board, with fiduciary and strategic responsibility to help VIEW meet its mission and maximize impact.

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DEBORAH MCCAULEY,DVM

Co-Founder / Executive Director

Dr. McCauley is a wildlife veterinarian who has worked with wildlife organizations including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, and ZooMontana. Dr. McCauley graduated from Royal Veterinary College and has won numerous global leadership awards including the 2017 Ashoka Fellowship and the Emily Couric Women’s Leadership Award in 2019.

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HEIDI SONEN

President

After earning a degree in meteorology from Penn State, Heidi worked as a television meteorologist for ten years before returning to a Penn State faculty position with the Weather Communications Group. In 1994, she co-founded Global Market Math which designs quantitative forecast models for financial markets.  Heidi strongly believes in science and that data, not ideology, is the best path to the elusive answers of science. She was drawn to volunteer with VIEW because of its important mission and unique approach to wildlife conservation.

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DAVID KIRUBI

Treasurer

David is a passionate advocate for sustainable business practices and wildlife conservation, leveraging his 21+ years of global business experience to serve on VIEW's board. An expert in building and leading high-performance teams, driving large-scale transformations, and managing nine and ten-figure transformations and P&Ls, David also has experience building and scaling start-ups and executing private equity transactions, most recently in the built environment and sustainability. A graduate of GE's premier leadership programs, Operations Management Leadership Program (OMLP) and the Corporate Audit Staff, he undertook his undergraduate studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a BSc in Industrial Engineering. David is dedicated to protecting endangered species for current and future generations.

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SUE STANLEY

Sue Stanley is an independent curator and writer. From 1989 to 2008, she served as adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Orlando Museum of Art. In 2007, Stanley coauthored (with three other women) a book called After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art, which won the Susan B. Koppelman award for multi-authored feminist literature. Their second book, The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium, was published in 2013. Stanley serves on the board of the University of Virginia Art Museum and is a member of the Art Table in New York. Along with her husband, Michael C. Stanley, and his children, she founded the Stanley Family Fund, which primarily supports environmental and educational activities.

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MAUD WELLES

Maud Welles is a portfolio manager at North Channel LLC. Prior to North Channel, Maud was a Director at UBS Asset Management and a Vice President at Chase Investors Management Corp. She serves on the Boards of Print Center New York, The Nature Conservancy of Montana, Wings Women of Discovery and the Yellowstone Club Community Foundation. Maud is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received her MBA from New York University. Maud’s interests include conservation, exploration, art, fly fishing, skiing and travel.

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GRETCHEN KAUFMAN,DVM

Co-Founder / Associate Director

Dr. Kaufman is a wildlife veterinarian. She worked in academia for nearly three decades, and was former Director of the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine at Tufts University. Assistant Director for Global Health Education and Training, Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, Washington State University, 

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DENNIS J. KELLER

Board Trustee Emeritus

Co-Founder, Retired Chairman and CEO of DeVry Education Group, and Princeton and Chicago School of Business graduate. Dennis has supported VIEW since the beginning - serving on the board and advancement advisory council.

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MARSHALL FIELD V

Fifth generation of a Chicago family whose activities have included merchandising, real estate, publishing, communications and civic affairs. Field has a strong interest in conservation.

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KAREN KRESS

Karen Bates Kress, former president of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, has 40 years of experience in nonprofit management and resource development. Previously, Kress served as the secretary of the NRPA Board of Directors. She has worked for The Nature Conservancy, the National Parks and Conservation Association, the American Farmland Trust, the National Wildlife Federation and had her own consulting business. 

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MICHELLE LAND

Michelle is a clinical professor of environmental policy and law at Pace University, where she co-directs the MS in Environmental Science and Policy program. She is the founding director of the Animal Policy Project and co-teaches the Animal Advocacy Clinic which trains students in professional policymaking and advocacy skills for animal protection. Michelle earned her JD and Environmental Law Certificate from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Environmental Law Review. Prior to her time at Pace, Michelle earned a BSc in Wildlife Biology at the University of Guelph and worked in endangered species reintroduction, rehabilitation and propagation as a wildlife biologist at the World Bird Sanctuary.

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COUNCIL

VIEW's top scientific minds, committed to sharing their expertise in the field of wildlife health while ensuring VIEW programs address emerging needs.

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DAWN ZIMMERMAN, DVM, MS

Director of International Programs for the VIEW, appointed assistant professor adjunct of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, and affiliate faculty at the University of Nairobi. Her work utilizes a One Health approach for wildlife health issues at the human-livestock-wildlife interface, and for the conservation of endangered species.

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TIERRA SMILEY EVANS, DVM, PhD

Wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist. She has worked in Uganda, Rwanda, Nepal, and Myanmar on projects involving wildlife health monitoring, diagnostic development, and veterinary capacity strengthening. She received her B.S. from Santa Clara University, her Ph.D. in veterinary medicine, a post-graduate certificate in veterinary medicine from Tufts University, and a Ph.D. in wildlife epidemiology from the University of California Davis. She is a Fulbright scholar and has taught veterinary and wildlife management students at Makerere University in Uganda.

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RAINA PLOWRIGHT, DVM, MS, PhD

Dr. Plowright is an infectious disease ecologist, epidemiologist, and wildlife veterinarian.  She received her veterinary degree in Australia and worked as a domestic animal and wildlife veterinarian in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and Antarctica. She did a Ph.D. in Ecology and M.S. in Epidemiology at the University of California, Davis, and a postdoc at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University. She is currently a professor at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

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COLIN GILLIN, MS, DVM

State Wildlife Veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He is also a past-president of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians and is Chair for the U.S. Animal Health Association Committee on Wildlife Diseases.  He also chairs several wildlife health working groups for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.  Colin graduated from the University of Wyoming and Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine.

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YEMI ADESOKAN, PhD

Yemi Adesokan is Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Gnubiotics SA, a Lausanne, Switzerland biotech company pioneering conjugated-glycan based microbiome targeted therapies. Yemi has been recognized for his innovative and pioneering work with awards such as the Boston Business Journal 40 under 40 award and the  MIT Technology Review’s annual list of 35 top global innovators under the age of 35 TR35. Yemi has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Genetics with George Church at Harvard Medical School.

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GINGER STOUT, DVM, MCM

Dr. Stout is a veterinarian with experience in wildlife capture, field surgery, research, and disease surveillance. She has worked in many different environments, including sites across the U.S., Canada and Nepal. She has contracted with VIEW, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife Health Office. She graduated from Auburn University Veterinary School and has a Masters of Conservation Medicine from Tufts University. 

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MARK DREW, DVM, MS, Diplomat ACZM

Mark was the Wildlife Veterinarian for the California Department of Fish for 2 years and Game Idaho Department of Fish and Game for 21 years. Mark is a Diplomat of the American College of Zoological Medicine, past President of the American College of Zoological Medicine, and past President of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians. He has been teaching chemical immobilization courses for 25 years.

VIEW SUPPORT TEAM

This team consists of VIEW's full/part time staff members and independent contractors dedicated to VIEW's operations to further its mission.

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JENNIFER YU, DVM, MS

WHIS Project Manager

Dr. Jennifer Yu obtained her DVM from UC Davis and MS in conservation medicine from Tufts. She completed an internship with the Smithsonian's Global Health Program, and has worked in both small animal general practice and wildlife rehabilitation medicine. She is currently working on her Epidemiology PhD on elephant herpesvirus (EEHV) at UC Davis and serves as a WHIS Project Manager with VIEW.

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JUSTIN KAISER, DVM

Veterinarian

Dr. Kaiser grew up in Montana, where he received a degree in Organismal Biology before moving to moving to Colorado to receive his veterinary training. After graduating from CSU's vet school, he acquired a master's in Wild Animal Health at the Royal Veterinary College of London. His professional interests are focused on biodiversity conservation, keystone species, and emerging infectious diseases.  

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JOSH LICHTY

Senior Software Developer

VIEW's software developer working on the newest version of the Wildlife Health Information System (WHIS). Currently, I'm working on improving the searchability and uniformity of the existing platform and setting the groundwork to create a mobile app for field data entry. Josh began programming simple video games and tools to do his math homework in his early teens. After a detour in the USMC infantry, he resumed his passion for programming and graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2019.

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ULLA KARPPINEN

Director of Communications

With more than 30 years of experience in banking, telecommunications and business education, Ulla is a global marketing an corporate communications professional. She has a solid track record in creating effective communication and marketing strategies for companies that want to expand into new markets or strengthen their internal communications. Ulla has worked in leading multinational organizations such as Nokia, IE Business School and BBVA. Ulla is a world citizen who speaks 6 languages and besides her home country, Finland, has lived in Brazil, Germany, USA, UK, Spain and Luxembourg.

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DAVID MURENZI, DVM

Veterinarian

University of Rwanda graduate with BVM. I completed internships at domestic animals clinics and was involved in the Human Dog Population Management project (HDPM) obtaining a certificate in Small animal practices and Field Surgeries. Highly interested in domestic and wild animals behavior and welfare.

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CHARLINE RUTAGENGWA, DVM

Veterinarian

Dr. Charline Rutagengwa joins us as a veterinarian based at the University of Rwanda (UR), to lead VIEW’s collaboration with the university. As a recent graduate from UR College of Agriculture, Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, she is passionate about conservation medicine and wildlife health research.

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DASHA MAGHOOLI

Director of Operations & Finance

Dasha has been working in healthcare administration for most of her career, with a five-year hiatus teaching at universities in Thailand and South Korea. She has degrees in sociology and education from California State University and Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before joining VIEW, she founded a website highlighting conservation projects at AZA-accredited zoos, and currently serves as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo and a transporter for California Wildlife Center. She is excited to be able to merge her professional skills with her passion for wildlife conservation.

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COURTNEY KRONE

Development & Operations Coordinator

Courtney holds a degree in Zoology from UC Santa Barbara and a master's degree in Environmental Science and Management from the same institution. Throughout her academic journey, she worked on several conservation projects contributing to communication initiatives for sharks and rays with WCS and supporting Western monarch populations with USFW. She is excited to work with VIEW and apply her skills to meaningful wildlife conservation projects.

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