#78 Conversations with Women of Wildlife (A Panel Discussion on the occasion of International Women’s Day)

Six women. Five continents. Decades of experience spanning wildlife veterinary practice, disease research, government policy, and international conservation. Recorded for 2026 International Women's Day, this episode brings together an extraordinary panel to celebrate women in wildlife health, their journeys, their achievements, and their honest reflections on working in a field that hasn't always made space for them.

From Taiwan to Kenya, Wyoming to Brazil, Indonesia to Germany, our guests share what drew them to wildlife health and what they've had to navigate along the way, the subtle daily realities of male-dominated spaces, alongside the genuine optimism that comes from seeing more women enter the field and rise into leadership. Warm, funny, and deeply human, this is the kind of conversation that reminds you why community matters in this work.

Watch this episode as a video podcast on our Youtube channel here. 

Learn more about our panelists:

• Dr. AiMei Chang, wildlife veterinarian and academic at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, and Secretary of the WDA Asia-Pacific section
• Dr. Sharon Mulindi, Senior Veterinary Officer at Kenya Wildlife Service and a Masters student of Conservation Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and Vice Chair of the WDA Africa and Middle East section
• Dr. Aricia Duarte-Benvenuto, veterinarian and postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Wildlife Comparative Pathology at the University of São Paulo in Brazil
• Dr. Kim Gruetzmacher, Wildlife and Conservation Veterinarian, working for the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation as Head of the Division for International Nature Conservation
• Dr. Samantha Allen, Supervisor of the Veterinary Service unit (Wyoming Game and Fish Department), State Wildlife Veterinarian for Wyoming, and President of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
• Dr. Fransiska Sulistyo, wildlife veterinarian and consultant specialising in orangutan conservation and rehabilitation in Indonesia, and a PhD student at Adelaide University.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.