Meet the Speakers

Vet scientist (conservation, wildlife health and disease Africa and Asia). 1980-1983 General Veterinary Practice.1983-2010 Zoological Society of London (ZSL) including 1991-2006 secondment to the Kenya Wildlife Service (parastatal wildlife authority), and epidemiology unit, the African Union IBAR Nairobi, Kenya. 2011 – 2022 Professor Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases Royal Veterinary College, London. Chair IUCN Wildlife Health Specialist Group SSC 2001-2022. Retired independent scholar and consultant, lectures internationally. President of the Wildlife Disease Association. Chief Editor: Elsevier Zoonosis Major Reference Work. FAO Bronze Medal (2010) and African Union IBAR certificates of appreciation (2022) for contributions to eradication of rinderpest; Tom and Beth Williams Award – Wildlife Disease Association (WDA) for exceptional contributions to wildlife health science and policy. Member of Academia Europaea.

Dr. Budimir Plavsic is a veterinary professional with extensive experience in animal health, epidemiology, and international standards and policy. He holds a Doctor of Veterinary Science (PhD), Master of Science (MSc) and has a strong educational background including a Bachelor of International Business Administration (BIBA) and diploma in diplomacy.
Dr. Plavsic has held significant positions, including his current role as the World Animal Health Organization (WOAH) Regional Representative for Europe since November 2018. Prior to this, he served as the Head of the Animal Health and Welfare Department at the Ministry of Agriculture of Serbia's Veterinary Directorate and was the Permanent Delegate of Serbia in OIE/WOAH.
His expertise spans a wide range of areas, including:

• Promoting and implementing WOAH international standards.
• Leading and managing animal disease and zoonoses prevention and control programs.
• Developing and utilizing the PVS evaluation methodology.
• Coordinating One Health activities in Europe and fostering collaboration between Quadripartite partners (FAO, UNEP, WHO, and WOAH).
• Coordinating GF-TAD's activities in Europe.
• Organizing and conducting numerous training programs.
• Transposing EU legislation and international standards into national legal frameworks.
• Managing and implementing capacity-building programs and national/international projects.

Dr Plavsic also has experience in finance and budgeting, communication and research, and has published numerous scientific articles. He is a member of several professional organisations and has contributed to various international events and training programmes. He is a permanent member of the Veterinary Academy of Serbia and a guest lecturer on One Health.

Relja Beck is a veterinary parasitologist with over 20 years of experience in parasitology, with a strong focus on wildlife parasitology and vector-borne diseases in wild animal populations. He graduated from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, where he began his academic career in 2001 as an assistant at the Department of Parasitology and Invasive Diseases.
Since 2009, he has been working at the Croatian Veterinary Institute, where he has led the Parasitology Unit since 2010. His work integrates field investigations, diagnostic parasitology, and molecular approaches, with particular emphasis on parasite detection, genotyping, and transmission dynamics at the wildlife–human interface within a One Health framework.
A major part of his research focuses on parasites and vector-borne pathogens in wildlife, including their role as reservoirs and their importance for the emergence of zoonotic diseases. He has extensive experience in the study of parasites in wild carnivores and other wildlife species.
Dr. Beck has authored or co-authored more than 250 scientific and professional publications, including conference contributions and three book chapters, and is a frequent invited speaker at international symposia. In 2018, he received the Croatian Government Award for Science in the field of biomedicine and health.

Prof. Dolores Gavier-Widén is a veterinarian and wildlife pathologist, and Head of the Department of Pathology and Wildlife Diseases at the Swedish Veterinary Agency. Her PhD and MSc degrees are from the University of California, Davis. Dolores has a long experience on infectious diseases of wildlife and wildlife health surveillance. She is a member of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Working Group on Wildlife and co-chairs the project A European wildlife network for wild mammals and birds within the European Partnership on Animal Health and Welfare.

Dolores is past president of the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA), past chair of the European WDA and received the WDA Ed Addison Distinguished Service Award in 2020. She has a long publication record and is first editor of the book Infectious Diseases of Wild Mammals and Birds in Europe.

Prof. Kuiken was born in Hong Kong and studied veterinary medicine at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands from 1980 to 1988. He obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1998. He specialized in veterinary pathology and was accepted as a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists in 2002. Since 2007, he is Professor of Comparative Pathology at the Department of Viroscience of the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The current focus of his group is the pathogenesis of several emerging and zoonotic virus infections in humans and animals, the prevention of new viral pandemics from bats in combination with bat protection, and the dual role of wild waterbirds as victims and carriers of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. For several years, he has been concerned with ways in which his field of research can contribute to transformative change towards a sustainable society.

Prof. Andrei D. Mihalca, DVM, graduated from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Cluj-Napoca Romania, in 2002 and in 2007 he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases at the same institution. Currently he is affiliated to the Department of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases at the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. From 2012 to 2024, he served as vice-Rector for International Relations of the same institution. Since 2014, he is Diplomate of the European College of Zoological Medicine (ECZM) and European Veterinary Specialist in Wildlife Population Health. Between 2022 and 2025 he served as the president of ECZM. Since 2023, he is the Secretary of the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology. His main research interests include ecology of vectors and vector-borne diseases, wildlife diseases, tropical parasitology and conservation medicine. He published more than 270 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and has a H-index of 36 (WoS). He is currently the Chair for Guidelines at the Tropical Council for Companion Animal Parasites and the leader of Capacity Building in VectorNet. Additionally, he is an external consultant for EFSA, ECDC, CITES, WWF and IAEA and member of the Scientific Committee of ECZM. He coordinated more than 40 research projects, including the European EurNegVec COST Action. He is actively involved in research, conservation medicine and social veterinary medicine projects focused on parasitic and infectious diseases of pets and wildlife across sub-Saharan Africa with previous work done in Kenya, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Central African Republic and Liberia. Prof. Andrei D. Mihalca is in the editorial board of several peer-reviewed journals, including Parasites & Vectors, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, BMC Veterinary Research, Veterinary Parasitology: Regional studies and Reports etc. In his free time, he does wildlife photography and travels.

Dr. Ruiz-Fons is a veterinary epidemiologist interested in understanding the biological and ecological mechanisms underlying the emergence of diseases in animal populations, primarily in wildlife, mainly in terrestrial mammals, and specifically in vector-borne infectious diseases. Understanding the biology and ecology of vertebrate-vector-pathogen interactions under the influence of the ecosystem is essential for understanding the transmission dynamics of vector-borne pathogens and predicting where and when cases of vector-borne diseases may occur, many of which are unpreventable and have serious consequences on wildlife health.

Valentina Caliendo obtained her degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Napoli, Italy. Her passion for veterinary medicine and curiosity for diverse cultures motivated her to travel across many countries to expand her skill, and work with different taxa. For several years, she provided veterinary care for a large raptor collection in the Middle East. More recently, her interest in avian medicine and medical research led her to pursue a doctorate at Erasmus Medical Center, the Netherlands, to explore the dynamics of avian influenza in wild birds. Since 2023 she works at the Dutch Wildlife Health Centre at Utrecht University, researching health and diseases of Dutch wildlife.

Mario Chiari is a veterinary public health officer with extensive experience in animal health, epidemiological surveillance, and emergency management at regional and national level. He is current Director of the Complex Unit Animals and Environment at ATS Metropolitan City of Milan and Deputy Commissioner appointed by the Italian Ministry of Health for African Swine Fever (ASF) control. Skilled in coordinating veterinary services, managing epidemic responses (ASF, avian influenza, vector‑borne diseases), and implementing One Health strategies he has background in wildlife health, biosafety in livestock production, and development of veterinary information systems, including regional oversight of Classy‑Farm. Mario is a Diplomate of the European College of Zoological Medicine (Wildlife Population Health), an author of numerous scientific publications on wildlife diseases, arboviruses, and zoonoses, and has been a Member of the Board of Directors of IZSLER since 2020. He is driven by a One Health vision that integrates science‑based decision‑making, preventive strategies, and effective institutional coordination.

Aleksija Neimanis is a wildlife pathologist at the Swedish Veterinary Agency where she is responsible for the Research and Development section at the Department of Pathology and Wildlife Diseases. She is also Associate Professor in Wildlife Health at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Aleksija has worked with national wildlife health surveillance programs in Canada and now Sweden for the past 20 years. Her research interests include emerging and re-emerging diseases of wildlife and marine mammal health. She is the secretary of the EWDA network committee, associate editor of the Journal of Wildlife Diseases and served as Chair of the Nordic section of the Wildlife Disease Association from 2013 – 2017.

Rob Robinson is one of the senior scientists of the British Trust for Ornithology and provides strategic leadership and co-ordination of research across BTO as a whole. Rob's main interest lies in understanding how changes in bird populations and distributions are determined by demography and how, within an applied context, the sum of individuals creates them and how they vary at different scales. Increasingly, this means understanding the role that diseases play, both in shaping bird populations but also their wider impacts. He has been involved in working on a range of diseases over 20 years both in a research context and developing webtools to inform policy. Rob is also the current Chair of the European Union for Bird Ringing (Euring), which coordinates the work of over 40 ringing schemes across Europe.