Professor Emerita Florina Tseng

The field of wildlife medicine was fairly nascent when Professor Emerita Florina Tseng (she/her) first embarked on her career in veterinary medicine. Her work in wildlife medicine, including more than two decades growing Tufts Wildlife Clinic (TWC) and training the next generation of wildlife veterinarians, has left a tremendous impact on the field and at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, earning her the honor of professor emeritus.

Though she was raised in a family of physicians, Dr. Tseng was fascinated by wild animals, animal behavior, and ecology, so she chose the veterinary path. After attending Oberlin College, she earned her D.V.M. from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. As veterinary curriculums at the time only minimally focused on wildlife medicine, she and a few classmates started their makeshift wildlife clinic within the veterinary hospital.

Tseng worked in private practices for small and exotic animals for a few years before wildlife medicine took center stage. While interning at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, a mentor inspired her to continue in the field.

“It took off from there. I’ve been doing wildlife medicine since 1990,” she says.

Tseng became the director of veterinary services at the Progressive Animal Welfare Society’s Wildlife Center (PAWS), the largest wildlife rehabilitation center in the Pacific Northwest. After a major oil spill off the coast of Washington State, she helped treat impacted seabirds and became involved in oiled wildlife response.

International Bird Rescue (IBR) reached out to Tseng regularly for assistance with animals exposed to oil spills, and she eventually moved to San Francisco to work full-time at IBR as research director and staff veterinarian. Over the years, she participated in disaster response to more than 20 oil spills nationally and internationally.

In 2000, Tseng relocated back east and joined Cummings School as a clinician at TWC and professor in the Department of Ambulatory Medicine and Theriogenology (AMT). When she first started, TWC was housed in Building 17, with surgery, X-ray, and other clinical work on the main floor and the animals housed in the basement. TWC tripled in size when the current building opened.

“It was a thrill when we moved in,” says Tseng. “We thought we would never fill the space up, but of course, we did. The number of animals coming in certainly increased, now over 4,000 animals seen a year.”

Tseng would spend the next two decades at TWC—including 12 years as the director. She would also hold the position of associate chair of the Department of Infectious Disease & Global Health (IDGH) when TWC switched departments. She directed the Zoological Medicine course for many years, too.

“It was wonderful working with wild animals because of the huge variety of patients,” says Tseng, who notes that beyond the medicine aspect, wildlife veterinarians also need to determine how to cage and feed wild animals while they are being treated. “We have to know the natural history of the different species we see. That improvisational part of wildlife medicine was always so fun for me—taking what we know from domestic animal medicine and extrapolating that to wildlife medicine.”

Teaching has been equally rewarding for Tseng. “If students are going into small or large animal practice, they will see wildlife. We want our students to have knowledge about wildlife care and learn basic techniques, such as taking an avian x-ray or handling and restraining a raptor. When students hold a hawk or an owl for the first time, their faces light up; it’s truly wonderful to see. It has meant a lot to me to educate the next generations of veterinary students.”

TWC expanded capacity significantly under Tseng’s leadership, with more cages and equipment to house and treat the animals. She also forged strong relationships with state and federal wildlife biologists and rehabilitators. Tseng credits the cohesive team she built with all TWC's accomplishments.

Tseng was tapped for a new position within Cummings School as the inaugural associate dean for Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Climate in 2020. She crafted the office’s vision, mission, and strategic plans, introduced an anti-racism task force, addressed bias in other areas, such as gender identity and disability, and recently started an International Support Group. She collaborates with the Tufts Veterinary Council on Diversity and leads the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice committee. She also teaches Diversity and Professional Perspectives courses for first- and second-year veterinary students.

“We’ve just begun this work—bringing more awareness about societal injustices and biases that exist within our community and working to ameliorate those,” says Tseng. “I’ve been the point person for those concerns at Cummings School, trying to work to build an inclusive community. There’s been some progress over the five years I’ve been doing this. Of course, there’s much more to do.”

In addition, student recruitment moved into Tseng’s office, in an effort to reach out to more under-represented student communities, as did the Adventures in Veterinary Medicine (AVM) program. In collaboration with Tufts Medical School, AVM high schoolers can participate in the STEM +M CONNECT program, which helps these students prepare for college and potentially veterinary school. Tseng’s office also established a community outreach working group which spearheads initiatives aimed at local schools and community organizations.

In her 25 years at Cummings School, Tseng says, “The community has kept me here all this time. I am so happy to join other folks who are emeritus, who I really respect and love. I’m honored to be a part of that cadre of faculty.”