Valeria Ruoppolo is a veterinarian with a Master’s degree and a PhD in Comparative Pathology at the University of São Paulo. An experienced oiled wildlife rehabilitator, Valeria has been a key member of the management team in oil spill responses around the world, with emphasis on incidents such as Treasure (South Africa), Prestige (Spain), Arturo Illia (Argentina) and Mare Doricum (Peru), among others. Since 2000, she has been a member of both the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the International Bird Rescue response teams.
Since 2010, she is Director at Aiuká, a wildlife response organization providing specialized contingency planning, training, management and response for wildlife to the industry in Brazil and Peru. Since November 2024, Aiuká is part of the OceanPact group, through EnvironPact. Aiuká is one of the ten organizations partnering to develop the Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS.org), a multi-year, multi-stakeholder project funded by OSRL and their members. Currently, Valeria is the Immediate Past Chair of the GOWRS.
Working with marine animal medicine, husbandry, and rehabilitation since 1995, she has dedicated lots of her time to seabirds and marine mammals, having spent five summers in Antarctica as part of the Brazilian and US Antarctic Programs.