Dr. Jo-Elle Mogerman loves it when someone shows her their Zoo Keys.
For those who don’t know: In 1960, the Philadelphia Zoo started giving out animal-shaped plastic keys to visitors. Guests would take their Zoo Keys to different exhibits and put them in little audio boxes to unlock recorded messages about giraffes, tigers, gorillas, etc. Zoo Keys were one of those Philly things — if you knew, you knew. They were beloved, and after the Zoo discontinued the Zoo Key program in 2007, they brought it back to local fanfare in 2019.
Mogerman, the Zoo’s president and CEO since 2023, spent most of her life in Chicago and the Midwest, but she quickly learned to appreciate Philly nostalgia. She remembers sitting at the airport a year or so ago, talking with a woman who was about her age, who said she still had hers.
“Wait, you still have the Zoo Key?” Mogerman remembers thinking while the woman proceeded to text her mom to ask if she could find it in the kitchen junk drawer.
It was a heartwarming moment, one that also illustrates something Mogerman loves about Philly’s zoo: Philadelphians feel an ownership over it. Generations of families have photos posing in front of the zoo’s beloved giant tortoises. Couples have gotten engaged in the ZooBalloon (RIP) and pedal boats. Literally everyone who has grown up in the tri-state area has gone there on one or more school trips.
[Editor’s note: Dr. Jo-Elle Mogerman is a nominee for The Philadelphia Citizen’s “Rad Nonprofit Leader of the Year.” On July 30, 2025, The Citizen will present the Rad Awards, celebrating dozens of outstanding Philadelphia women and their allies. Find out more information, and get your tickets.]
“This zoo is a part of what it means to be a Philadelphian,” she says. “This is a place where everybody can come, no matter who you are.”
Mogerman — who is the first woman and first Black person to lead the 151-year-old institution — understands the importance of adhering to traditions. Over her brief tenure, she’s continued its long-established missions of caring for its residents (more than 1,900 of them), fostering conservation, and encouraging community engagement. Two years in, she’s going forward with the expected — bolstering conservation work and leading renovations and upgrades. And she stands out from her predecessors for championing access — beyond the families who can afford a $169 annual membership, beyond, even, those requisite class trips. If Mogerman’s past is any indication, she herself might be the key to the Zoo’s survival the next 150 years.
Building a career in zoos
Mogerman has loved animals since she was a child. Growing up in Chicago, she had Wildlife Treasury, an animal encyclopedia that was released via a series of cards (like baseball cards, featuring creatures).
“[I was] a big city girl who really just loved animals,” she says. “ I took all the science classes I could.”
She went to Macalester College to study biology and planned to become a field researcher. Then, while camping in the Badlands in South Dakota for an ornithology class, she realized that, while she loved animals, she was more of an indoors girl.
“At the time, Jane Goodall was big, and she was in the forest with the chimpanzees. After that [trip], I started thinking, she’s there with those chimpanzees. There’s no restroom. She’s sleeping in a tent. Does she have a shower?”
“I don’t mind sleeping on the ground, but you want me to go to the restroom in a hole in the ground? No, that’s not what I’m gonna do,” Mogerman says.
Mogerman knew she had to pivot to find a way to work with animals — without all the camping. She did an internship as a zookeeper as an undergrad, and worked in the education department of the Minnesota Zoo while earning her Master’s in conservation biology at the University of Minnesota. Zoos, she found, fit.
“In order for conservation to be effective and to have these animals and plants and the environment they depend on — that we all depend on — persist, we need solutions to come from everywhere. It’s not just going to come from those who have degrees. It’s not just going to come from those who live in certain neighborhoods.” — Dr. Jo-Elle Mogerman
Education and conservation
After receiving a PhD in biology from the University of Illinois-Chicago, she went full-time at zoos and aquariums in Chicago and St. Louis. Her roles most often involved education and advocacy for equity and inclusion in science and conservation.
At the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois, she partnered with libraries to connect the zoo to broader communities, and worked to increase diversity among guests by 25 percent and among staff by 5 percent. Mogerman didn’t see her work as simply opening up the zoo to more people; she regards diversity as a way to strengthen the outlooks and missions of institutions themselves.
“In order for conservation to be effective and to have these animals and plants and the environment they depend on — that we all depend on — persist, we need solutions to come from everywhere,” she says. “It’s not just going to come from those who have degrees. It’s not just going to come from those who live in certain neighborhoods. It can come from anywhere.”
At the Chicago Zoological Society and Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, she continued this work. In 2019, she moved to St. Louis to lead the creation of a 425-acre safari park and animal science and conservation breeding facility at the Saint Louis Zoo, scheduled to open in 2027.
Mogerman comes to Philly
Mogerman has long admired Philadelphia Zoo for its history of firsts: first zoo in the country, first animal health laboratory, first in the U.S. to have births of an orangutan and a cheetah, among other critters, and first in the world with an overhead network of mesh trails that great apes, tigers, other big cats and small primates move through in view of visitors.
Over the past two years, Mogerman has overseen a few firsts of her own. This spring, seven Western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoises were born to Mommy, the zoo’s oldest resident (she arrived in 1932 and is now 97) and a first-time parent. Mommy, her mate Abrazzo (estimated age: 100) and their seven babies are critically endangered. Even in captivity, they play a critical role in preserving the genetic diversity of the species.
“She’s basically a civic engineer for education. She’s got the environmental leadership piece, and she’s all about community involvement.” — Susan Jacobson
“We are recording data right now on incubation time periods, temperature, humidity, substrate, so that we can advance the knowledge about incubation of endangered tortoises,” Mogerman says, “We’re also collecting data on the baby tortoises, so we advance the knowledge base about caring for them.”
It’s notable that Mogerman differs from her predecessor at the Zoo. Vik Dewan was a career banker who came to the institution in 2006 with a mandate for financial security. Under his tenure, the Zoo became Philly’s most visited ticketed attraction; those overhead trails and kids’ zoo came about, and classes from Philly and other Title 1 schools could visit free of charge. But Mogerman’s academic and professional background give her a broader perspective of the Zoo’s mission in a global context.
Zoo board member Dr. Andrew M. Hoffman is dean of veterinary medicine and a professor of large animal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Of Mogerman, he says, “She definitely has a sense that Philadelphia Zoo could excel in research and partnering in research in certain key areas for some of these species that need more investigation — whether it’s their reproduction or their genetics or their nutrition.”
“It’s a challenge to make conservation a financial priority for zoos and yet, foundationally, that’s a big part of why they exist,” he says. “[She] really elevates the actual biology of these animals when something new happens. She understands and communicates well the biology and the purpose of zoos.”
A zoo for Philly
Having grown up and worked in urban environments, Mogerman also knows what it takes to bring an entire city into a nature-first space. She’s fallen for many of the zoo’s animals. She loves giving scratches (safely) to Tony the Rhino and she loves that people can see Aye-ayes, a gremlin-like, nocturnal lemur featured in her beloved Wildlife Treasury cards, right here in Philly.
Susan Jacobson, president of Jacobson Strategic Communications, is impressed with Mogerman’s leadership. “She’s basically a civic engineer for education. She’s got the environmental leadership piece, and she’s all about community involvement.”
Under Mogerman’s leadership, the Zoo finally joined the 80 other major regional ticketed attractions and organizations by becoming part of the Art-Reach ACCESS Program. Established in 2014, the program allows anyone with a PA ACCESS Card — generally, residents with disabilities or lower incomes — to visit places like the Franklin Institute, Barnes Foundation, Longwood Gardens, Magic Gardens — for $2 per person for up to four people.
And it’s not just visitors Mogerman is welcoming; she’s also focused on hiring locally. With a $20 million renovation to the bear exhibit — which will allow bears take to those overheard trails — and new homes for flamingos and penguins, she’s made sure the zoo hires local contractors.
“A lot of people think of us as just a destination, which is great. Please come and visit. We do great work. But also we’re an employer. We buy goods and services and we’re being really intentional about that in terms of how we are giving back and being of service to the community.”
Mogerman is still coming up with ideas for how she can further the Zoo’s mission and increase community engagement. She is excited by Philly’s wealth of universities — not just Penn, Drexel and Temple, but Swarthmore, St. Joe’s, Villanova and other nearby institutions — and is looking for ways to collaborate with them, either by creating opportunities for students at the zoo or through collaborative work with university faculty members. She also wants the Zoo to be a convener of groups around Philly that are concerned with conservation, the environment and protecting wildlife.
She sees Philadelphians engaging with nature all the time, in ways both big and small — from Fairmount Park walks to front-of-home flower boxes — and is determined to fuel that love in ways that will stay with people for years … just like those beloved plastic keys.
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