Jonathan H. Epstein

Associate Vice President, Wildlife Trust
Executive Director, Consortium for Conservation Medicine

Dr. Jonathan Epstein is the Associate Vice President of Field Programs at Wildlife Trust and the Executive Director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM) based at Wildlife Trust. The CCM is a unique collaborative multi-institutional partnership including Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, USGS National Wildlife Health Center and Wildlife Trust. The CCM is the first formal inter-institutional partnership to applied conservation medicine - linking ecology, conservation, and health (both human and animal).

Dr. Epstein received his DVM and MPH from The Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and Tufts School of Medicine's Graduate Programs in Public Health after completing a four-year combined program. He was the first graduate to receive the TCSVM Certificate in International Veterinary Medicine, after completing a specialty program that provided practical training in field-based international scientific research.

His research interests include the ecology of zoonotic viruses such as Nipah virus, Ebola and SARS; zoonotic disease emergence at the human-animal interface; pathogen discovery; and trade as a mechanism for pathogen pollution. He is currently part of a large international collaboration that is investigating the ecology of Nipah virus in Bangladesh, where outbreaks occur in people almost every year with mortality rates reaching 90%. The focus of this research is to better understand the factors that cause this lethal virus to emerge, and to develop models that will predict and help prevent future outbreaks.

In 2004, he was part of a team of Chinese, Australian, and American scientists that identified bats as the natural wildlife reservoir for SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in China. This discovery further highlighted the significance of live animal markets that contain wild animal species together at high density with domestic animals and people, as a mechanism for zoonotic disease emergence. Results from this work were published in the journal Science.

Dr. Epstein holds adjunct faculty positions at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology; Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and Tufts School of Medicine; and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. His work has been published in several leading scientific journals including the CDC's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, The Annals of the NY Academy of Science, Biological Conservation, and Science. He has been invited to speak at several international scientific meetings including the World Health Organization's Consultation on Emerging Zoonoses. He holds advisory positions on two committees in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN): the Veterinary Specialist Group and the Chiroptera Species Specialist Group.

In 2006, Dr. Epstein became the first alumnus from Tufts University to be inducted into the Delta Omega Honors Society for excellence in the field of Public Health and in 2007 he received the Outstanding Alumnus award from the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

His work has been featured on 60 Minutes II, The Discovery Channel, Discovery Health, The Science Channel, The National Geographic Channel, NBC Nightly News, and the BBC Newshour, and in several periodicals including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Scientist, Science News, Discover, Newsweek, The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and National Geographic News.