Biographical Sketch
Steven B. Tillis, born in 1994, grew up in Oviedo, Florida. Above all other interests or academics, a passion for reptiles was his core motivation for pursuing biological sciences. Although Steven loved all reptiles, he soon began focusing deeply on pythons of the world. Stacks of snake cages cluttering his childhood bedroom eventually expanded into a commercial facility with hundreds of pythons near Gainesville, Florida.
Concurrent with commercial python breeding, Steven graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida in 2016. From 2016 to 2018 Steven produced snakes as a full-time career, until an outbreak of respiratory disease killed many of the adult pythons in his colony. Through the University of Florida Small Animal Hospital, he found the responsible agent to be serpentoviruses, a clade of viruses discovered only a few years prior.
After this unfortunate event, Steven began graduate school in 2018 in the Department of Comparative, Diagnostic, and Population Medicine in the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine under the direction of Dr. Robbert Ossiboff to better characterize serpentoviruses. He received his Ph.D. in the summer of 2023 in Veterinary Medical Sciences. Steven’s research on serpentovirus provided both practical and natural history information for reptile keepers and was awarded the Charles F. Simpson Scholarship for outstanding research.
During his free time from graduate school, Steven has also built a public educational facility housing almost half of the world’s python species, promoting information on biosecurity, caging innovation, and responsible pet ownership. After graduation he looks forward to using this facility and associated website (Reptillis.org) to promote a higher standard of reptile veterinary care and ownership.
Concurrent with commercial python breeding, Steven graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida in 2016. From 2016 to 2018 Steven produced snakes as a full-time career, until an outbreak of respiratory disease killed many of the adult pythons in his colony. Through the University of Florida Small Animal Hospital, he found the responsible agent to be serpentoviruses, a clade of viruses discovered only a few years prior.
After this unfortunate event, Steven began graduate school in 2018 in the Department of Comparative, Diagnostic, and Population Medicine in the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine under the direction of Dr. Robbert Ossiboff to better characterize serpentoviruses. He received his Ph.D. in the summer of 2023 in Veterinary Medical Sciences. Steven’s research on serpentovirus provided both practical and natural history information for reptile keepers and was awarded the Charles F. Simpson Scholarship for outstanding research.
During his free time from graduate school, Steven has also built a public educational facility housing almost half of the world’s python species, promoting information on biosecurity, caging innovation, and responsible pet ownership. After graduation he looks forward to using this facility and associated website (Reptillis.org) to promote a higher standard of reptile veterinary care and ownership.
.