That was one of my first experiences that brought the concept of One Health into my professional life—how people and animals live together and what that means for all of them. That was always my worldview, that we all need space, we all need food and shelter, and we share this place. That was the first time I started to look at it from a research perspective. The most transformative, most empowering thing was working with Jane Goodall. It set me on the path I'd always wanted to follow.
The Storied Career of Dr. Felicia Nutter, V93
Wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist has traversed the globe working with animals and preventing disease outbreaks
Her first field research experience studying disease spread among chimpanzees in Tanzania launched a prolific and fascinating career for Dr. Felicia Nutter, V93. From helping communities across Asia and Africa prevent and respond to infectious disease outbreaks to treating trafficked wildlife, Nutter has made an indelible impact on animals and humans worldwide and here at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
An associate professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health at Cummings School and in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, Nutter leads conservation medicine and One Health initiatives globally and trains upcoming veterinarians, epidemiologists, and One Health professionals and educators.
Complementing these endeavors, Nutter has co-authored more than 50 published research studies supporting One Health efforts and providing crucial insights into endangered species conservation and zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases, including herpes virus among Asian elephants, Q fever from ticks to camels, and avian influenza from migrating wild birds, to highlight just a few.
Two childhood heroes inspired her career, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. Introduced to her through National Geographic and Wild Kingdom television specials, Nutter recalls, “They brought all the wildlife into the living room. I had those amazing female role models that were new, and that was groundbreaking.”
Nutter connected with wildlife right outside her door, growing up on a small farm in West Virginia. She was determined to be a veterinarian one day and to work with Jane Goodall. At Yale University, Nutter majored in biology and psychology and spent her summers shadowing zookeepers in Florida and Illinois.
While Nutter was earning her D.V.M. at Cummings School, Jane Goodall reached out to the dean, looking for someone to research gastrointestinal parasites afflicting chimpanzees at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Nutter was the second Cummings School student to volunteer (her future husband, Dr. Chris Whittier, V97, director of the Master of Conservation Medicine program at Cummings School, was the third).
“That was one of my first experiences that brought the concept of One Health into my professional life—how people and animals live together and what that means for all of them,” says Nutter. “That was always my worldview, that we all need space, we all need food and shelter, and we share this place. That was the first time I started to look at it from a research perspective. The most transformative, most empowering thing was working with Jane Goodall. It set me on the path I'd always wanted to follow.”
After completing her veterinary degree, Nutter returned to Goodall’s research site on a Fulbright scholarship. One night, she received a radio call from local police that had confiscated infant chimpanzees and African grey parrots from wildlife traffickers. While the Jane Goodall Institute primarily focused on scientific research into chimp behavior and conservation, this emergency confiscation meant that the institute, Tanzania National Parks, and local collaborators all worked together to help the chimps and parrots. Nutter helped establish care routines and trained others to work with the trafficked animals.
After the year in Tanzania, Nutter returned to the United States to further advance her clinical skills with an internship in small animal medicine and surgery at North Carolina State University, which led to a residency in free-ranging wildlife medicine and a Ph.D. in comparative biomedical sciences, researching humane population control of feral cats.
“Working with feral cats was a way to solve a problem that people created, to humanely reduce the impact of feral cats on native wildlife, to improve the welfare of the cats, and to protect human health. This was really another One Health project, before this name for the holistic approach to solving challenging problems became widely known,” she says.
Nutter’s work helped develop a mathematical model to calculate the proportion of cats in a colony to trap, neuter, and return to make a lasting impact that has informed cat population control efforts across the country. She also co-founded NC State’s Veterinary International Program, as her experiences abroad had been so formative during her studies.
Pursuing work inspired by Dian Fossey, Nutter joined the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project as the program’s first specialist wildlife veterinarian, treating gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Over her four years with the project, Nutter improved anesthesia protocols to safely provide emergency care for gorillas in the wild, helped launch research projects on other wildlife and domestic animals, mentored local and international students, and hired and trained local veterinarians.
“The goal was always to work ourselves out of a job,” says Nutter. “The incredible commitment of the Rwandan, Ugandan, and Congolese veterinarians and the staff who knew the gorillas well and worked with them for so long was amazing.”
Gorillas and monkeys rescued from conflict-affected areas and wildlife traffickers became more frequent patients, so the team once again pivoted to organize a specialized gorilla rehabilitation program. “It was an incredible growth period, really challenging, but really fulfilling because we could see that the work we were doing was making a difference,” she says.
Nutter next turned her attention to marine mammals (Jacques Cousteau also ranks among her childhood heroes), providing clinical care for stranded seals and sea lions at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California. She collaborated on research into brain abnormalities in stranded sea lions caused by neurotoxins in algae blooms affecting their navigation skills, and helped with the first antibiotic treatment of free-swimming humpback whales.
Returning to Cummings School as a member of the faculty, Nutter was appointed senior technical officer of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats program RESPOND. Over the next 16 years, she would help lead USAID programs to reduce the risk of zoonotic pathogen spillover and develop One Health networks in 14 countries across Africa and Asia. She worked integrally with communities and universities, bringing together experts from different fields and government agencies to prevent and respond to infectious disease outbreaks.
The subsequent USAID One Health Workforce took these initiatives even further, broadening programs and research projects, and adding universities throughout Africa and Asia. As the senior technical officer for One Health Workforce, Nutter created One Health curricula and teaching resources and trained local professionals across sectors to implement One Health programs.
“We both defined for the first time One Health core competencies and developed educational modules to help faculty members teach One Health. These were some of the first One Health teaching resources, developed by experts from multiple countries, and freely available for anyone to use,” she says.
Nutter next worked as the wildlife health lead for USAID’s Strategies to Prevent Spillover (STOP Spillover) project, and assumed the co-deputy director role in the last two years of the project.
“STOP Spillover is in many ways a culmination of that work because it took everything from the community level—where people and animals are coming into contact and where outbreaks happen—and advocated for community voices and community empowerment,” says Nutter. “We could draw a through line from this ground-level work to academic, civil society, and government institutions around the world for how to do One Health.”
Nutter trains upcoming veterinarians and One Health leaders abroad and at Cummings School, teaching and mentoring students in the veterinary and conservation medicine programs, and as the director of Cummings School’s International Veterinary Medicine program.
As for what’s next, Nutter plans to build upon the progress of STOP Spillover by expanding and establishing new One Health programs to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks in Asian, African, and South American communities. She is in the beginning stages of research into disrupting entangled human and wildlife trafficking, incorporating technologies such as AI and cybersecurity.
“There's a lot of convergence between wildlife trafficking and human trafficking and exploitation. We put together a group of people across Tufts and a few outside partners to bring together data in all of these areas in a meaningful way,” she says.
Their initial projects will focus on shark finning, human trafficking, and great ape trafficking. Nutter also plans to train more wildlife veterinarians in Africa to treat sick, injured, and rescued great apes.
“I want to try to solve the problems that humans have created for ourselves and every other species on the planet. My focus remains on wildlife and ecosystem conservation. I want to continue to empower smart, caring, motivated people to protect wildlife, and in the end, to protect ourselves.”