BOARD CERTIFIED—AVIAN/EXOTICS SPECIALIST
Dr. Lucy Spelman is a lifelong animal lover, educator, scientist, and writer. A board-certified zoo and wildlife veterinarian, she treats all species. Her experience includes studying and caring for giant otters, giant pandas, and mountain gorillas. In 2015, she founded Creature Conserve, a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing a creative community that combines art and science to cultivate new pathways for wildlife conservation. Her work is based on the idea that complex problems, such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and emerging zoonotic diseases, require multidisciplinary solutions. In her words, “At Creature Conserve, our foundational belief is that the arts, informed, inspired, and prompted by science, have the power to direct our attention to the ongoing loss of species and what we can do about it. In addition to publishing over 40 scientific articles, she is co-editor of two non-fiction books, Creature Needs: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation and The Rhino with Glue On Shoes, and is the author of National Geographic Kids Animal Encyclopedia. She is currently a senior lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design, a clinician at Ocean State Veterinary Specialists, a member of the board of the Wildlife Clinic of Rhode Island, and the executive director of Creature Conserve.
Animals—both domestic and wild—have always been part of her life. She has an undergraduate degree in biology from Brown University and a doctoral degree in veterinary medicine from the University of California at Davis. In 1994, she became the 43rd member of the American College of Zoological Medicine, the first to achieve this milestone right out of residency training. Her work experience includes zoo, wildlife, and small animal medicine; public speaking; writing; teaching; zoo administration—she served as the first female Director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo from 2000-2005; and, wildlife conservation. In particular, her field experience includes Sichuan, China with giant pandas, Guyana with giant otters, and central Africa with mountain gorillas where she lived for three years as field manager for the nonprofit Gorilla Doctors. She began teaching biology to non-majors in 2009, initially as Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University and then continuing as part-time Faculty in the Liberal Arts division of the Rhode Island School of Design where she teaches today. Inspired by her cross-disciplinary teaching, her writing, and deep appreciation for the arts, she founded Creature Conserve. In her TEDx talk, Art Can Save a Panda she shares examples of student artwork and the origin of the non-profit’s mission. In her words: “Our foundational belief is that the arts, informed, inspired, and prompted by science, have the power to direct our attention to the ongoing loss of species and what we can do about it.
