Sharon L. Deem, DVM, PhD, DACZM (Zoo and Wildlife Medicine)

Dr. Sharon Deem is the Director of the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine (ICM), for which she serves as the first Director since it launched in 2011. The ICM takes a holistic approach to wildlife conservation, public health, and sustainable ecosystems to ensure healthy animals and healthy people. In addition to global One Health / Conservation Medicine research projects, Dr. Deem is training the next generation of One Health practitioners. In 2018 and 2020, Dr. Deem delivered TEDx talks on One Health. She has published extensively on conservation and health topics and her first textbook, “Introduction to One Health: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Planetary Health,” which she co-wrote with Drs. Kelly Lane-deGraaf and Elizabeth Rayhel, was published in January 2019. Before joining the Saint Louis Zoo, Dr. Deem worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society and Smithsonian National Zoo as both a clinical zoo veterinarian and a field wildlife veterinarian. During her first three years with the Saint Louis Zoo, Dr. Deem lived and worked in the Galapagos Islands, where she served as the veterinary epidemiologist for the Zoo’s WildCare Institute Center for Avian Health in the Galapagos. Dr. Deem holds a DVM from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, a PhD in veterinary epidemiology from the University of Florida and is board-certified in the American College of Zoological Medicine in Zoo and Wildlife Medicine.