Interdisciplinary Science and the Pink Goulashes

K.A. Alexander, PhD, DVM

Abstract:

The world is besieged with difficult and complex problems that challenge our historical way of doing scientific business – and business it is. There are continuous calls for transformation in our scientific approach with the expectation that true sector integration and information synthesis will stimulate novel interventions and ideas. The importance of this approach is clear and we are making progress. But where are you on the scale? Are you hand waving? Are you simply wearing pink goulashes, appearing to be different or are you truly integrating the different perspective implied?

Biography:

Dr. Kathleen Alexander has been conducting research in East and Southern Africa for over twenty years.  She has worked for the Government of Botswana as both the Chief of the Wildlife Veterinary Unit in the Department of Wildlife and National Parks and later, as the Ecological Advisor to the Office of the President of Botswana and the Attorney Generals Chambers. She is a member of both the World Conservation Union’s Wildlife Health Specialist Group and the Commission for Ecosystem Management. She moved to Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech in 2007 where she continues to conduct research in her long-term Botswana study site on the dynamics of emerging infectious disease at the human – animal interface, human-wildlife conflict, and community livelihoods and development.  Kathleen received both her PhD and veterinary degree from University of California, Davis.


 

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