Patricia Gaffney

Dr. Patricia Gaffney serves San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance as Director of Disease Investigations. She oversees five labs – Wildlife Pathology, Histology, Molecular Diagnostics, Epidemiology, and Amphibian Disease – which function as a unit to carry out disease investigations for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance's animal collections and field conservation programs. Her primary research interests include amyloid diseases of mammals, pathology of endangered canids, dynamics of disease on the ecosystem level, and disease risk assessments for recovery programs.

Patricia manages collaborative pathology investigations for field conservation programs and participates in the recovery programs for Hawaiian forest birds, Pacific pocket mice, San Bernardino kangaroo rats, and Mountain yellow legged frogs. She oversees disease surveillance efforts in Northern Kenya aimed at conservation of the critically endangered Hirola antelope and Grevy’s zebra. Her conservation research with island foxes utilizes proteomics, genomics, bioinformatics and epidemiology to understand genetic predisposition to disease in bottlenecked species. She serves as pathology advisor to the Island Fox Recover Team and Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan.