Dr. Tortella was born and raised in West Texas, a couple hours north in Amarillo. He attended Oklahoma State University for undergraduate where he met his wife and obtained his B.S. in Animal Science in 2019. While working on his undergraduate studies, he spent a summer interning at the Oklahoma City Zoo working with the rhinos, hippos, elephants, and sloths where he discovered a love for exotic and zoo animal care, and spent two years working at the Oklahoma State University large animal hospital. He and his wife remain fiercely loyal to his undergraduate school to this day.When it came time for Dr. Tortella to attend veterinary school, he moved back to Texas to attend vet school at Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine. During vet school he continued his education into exotic animal medicine by taking leadership positions within the Zoo, Exotics, and Wildlife club, specializing his education to focus on more exotic animal medicine, interning at the Oklahoma City Zoo as a veterinary student, becoming certified in safe wildlife chemical immobilization (darting), and by spending a year working at the Schubot Center for Avian Health where he took care of the research birds and did research into Avian Bornavirus disease transmission, diagnostics development, and early vaccine development. He recently finished his Veterinary Studies in May of 2023.Following graduation, he has moved back to West Texas to start his veterinary career while his wife attends Texas Tech University obtaining her PhD in Communications. He and his wife have two pups: Cally, a black Labrador, and Aurora, a Great Pyrenees x Golden Retriever mix. When he isn't at work, Dr. Tortella can frequently be found spending time at home with his wife and two dogs, involved in events and study with his church, watching Saturday college football, and finding groups to play board and video games with