Steven A. Osofsky, DVM is the Jay Hyman Professor of Wildlife Health & Health Policy at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director for Wildlife Health at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a US-based international nonprofit focused on conservation and sustainable development around the world. Osofsky is one of the pioneers of the One Health movement, having led the drafting of the core Manhattan Principles on One World, One Health in 2004. He has developed, launched and managed some of the first major applied One Health programs, including the AHEAD (Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development) Program (launched at the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa) and the HEAL (Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages) Program (launched in 2009). As the only veterinarian serving on The Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health, he was able to bring his range of practical experiences (from both health and environmental conservation perspectives) to the task of shaping the highly interdisciplinary conceptual approach underpinning the field of Planetary Health (http://planetaryhealthalliance.org).
Prior to is leadership role at WCS, Dr. Osofsky served as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US) Director of Field Support for species programs in Asia and Africa. In the early 1990s, he was the first Wildlife Veterinary Officer for the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks. As an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Diplomacy Fellow, he served as a Biodiversity Program Specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where he focused on ground-truthing integrated conservation and development projects, with an emphasis on harvesting the synergies of strategic interdisciplinary programming.
Dr. Osofsky’s diverse publications list includes the edited volume Conservation and Development Interventions at the Wildlife/Livestock Interface: Implications for Wildlife, Livestock and Human Health. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University, and completed a small animal medical/surgical internship at Virginia Tech.