Yussaira Castillo Fortuna, DVM, PhD

Born in a rural community of the southwest of the Dominican Republic and raised among teachers in a large and noisy family with a cat and a pig as her pets. Dreaming her whole life about becoming an architect later changed her mind and decided to become a veterinarian because she wanted to understand “how death works”. She is very passionate about education, food security and DBZ.

EDUCATION

Autonomous University of Santo Domingo. Dom. Rep. – Degree in Veterinary Medicine. April, 2011.
Yamaguchi University, Japan - Ph.D. In Veterinary Sciences: specialty in Pathological and Preventive Veterinary Medicine.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am particularly excited in potentially collaborating with research involving conservation medicine and the reduction of the risks of zoonoses caused by food among people that live in poverty and have no access to health education like my own hometown in the Dominican Republic. I have become more interested in the prevention of diseases through the study of the disease´s behavior in the past and in the different kind of environments that it may be exposed to. I believe that the interdisciplinary approach of One Health can effectible reduce the difficulty to study, treat and prevent zoonotic diseases.