Paul Holmes works in a veterinary diagnostic pathology laboratory in Shropshire, England, part of a national network of APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency) laboratories.  The work focuses on endemic and new and emerging diseases of wildlife and livestock.  After graduating from Liverpool vet school and working in practice, he obtained an MSc in Wild Animal Health from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Royal Veterinary College (RVC).  He now helps coordinate a partnership of enthusiastic British organisations that contribute to wildlife disease surveillance and investigation throughout GB. He has a particular interest in biodiversity and conservation.

Helle Hydeskov is a wildlife veterinarian and doctoral candidate at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom, where she is studying health effects of lead (Pb) in Scandinavian brown bears. Helle graduated veterinary school from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2010 and has since worked in 20 different countries with multiple stakeholders. Prior to joining Nottingham Trent University in 2019, Helle completed a 1-year small animal rotating internship at a private veterinary emergency and referral hospital in Canada and 3-year European College of Zoological Medicine residency in Wildlife Population Health at the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Veterinary College, United Kingdom. Helle became an EBVS® European Veterinary Specialist in Wildlife Population Health in 2019. Helle has been an EWDA member since 2016 and has served on the EWDA Small Grants Committee since 2019. Since 2022, she has served on the EWDA Board as the Student Activities Coordinator.

Gábor Á. Czirják is a research scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) Berlin, Germany. After graduating in 2004 from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Romania, he obtained his PhD in 2011 in the field of Veterinary Medicine & Ecology, Biodiversity and Evolution from the same university and from Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse, France. He joined the IZW as head of the wildlife immunology lab within the Department of Wildlife Diseases in 2010. His research interest covers several areas from the fields of eco-immunology, evolution of host-parasite interactions, conservation physiology and ecology of wildlife diseases. Over the years, he has been working with several taxonomic groups (reptiles, birds, mammals), but recently he focuses mainly on bats and carnivores. Member of the EWDA/WDA since 2004…between 2004-2008 was a student representative of Romania, and since 2016 responsible for the communication with Eastern European countries. 

Gorazd Vengušt has over 20 years of experience working in the field of wildlife diseases for the Veterinary Faculty and National Veterinary Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is an EWDA member and an ECZM diplomate (Wildl. Pop. Health). He is involved in ASF-STOP COST action focused on understanding and combating African Swine Fever in Europe and LIFE projects focused on facilitating long-term conservation of large carnivores (SloWolf – finished, Life DinAlp Bear – finished, LIFE Lynx – active). He has experience in promoting and advancing wildlife health monitoring programs in the field and education of hunters as an important link between the field and veterinary services.

Emmanuelle Gilot-Fromont is a veterinary epidemiologist and professor at VetAgro Sup, the veterinary school of Lyon, where she leads the expertise group Expertise Vétérinaire et Agronomique Animaux Sauvages (EVAAS). After graduating in 1992 from the Lyon veterinary school, she defended a PhD in eco-epidemiology in 1997. Her research activities are performed in the Biometry and Evolutionary Ecology (LBBE) lab, and are based on the long-term follow-up of free-living populations of ungulates. Her research interests include the transmission of pathogens in wildlife and at the domestic-wildlife interface, its management, as well as immunocompetence of wild species, its variations, determinants (chronic stress) and consequences on fitness and health. She is currently working mainly on the roe deer (immunocompetence and health senescence), and on the management of brucellosis in the Alpine ibex. She is an ECZM diplomate (Wildlife Population Health).

Ignasi Marco has been working in the field of wildlife management, health and diseases since 1990. Ignasi graduated in Veterinary Sciences from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in 1989 and he did his PhD on capture and stress in wild ungulates in 1995. In 2002, he obtained a position as an Associate Professor. His research interest is conservation medicine, which includes the study of ecology and diseases of wildlife and its management. Over the years, Ignasi has worked on a variety of taxonomic groups, including several species of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles. Most of his work has been field-based in the Pyrenees, undertaking long-term studies with diseases of Pyrenean chamois. He currently lectures on wildlife diseases as part of veterinary degrees, MSc and PhD programs.

Alessandra Gaffuri is an Italian veterinarian who has been interested in wildlife diseases since she graduated university with a thesis about infectious keratoconjunctivitis in chamois. She has a postgraduate degree in veterinary public health and is now responsible for the Bergamo diagnostic pathology laboratory within the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell’Emilia Romagna (IZSLER). She is primarily involved in the diagnosis and control of infectious diseases of wildlife and small ruminants. Since 1997, she has been performing a sanitary control program in wildlife of Bergamo Province, focusing on the study of interspecies-transmitted diseases and zoonosis in the mountain ecosystem. She was part of the EFSA WG on “Tuberculosis in deer” 2006/2007 and member of the EMIDA-ERANET project on Tuberculosis in alpine wildlife 2011-2014. She has also been cooperating with the Italian National Reference Centre for Wildlife Diseases since 2002.