The Intersection of Epidemiology & Disease Ecology
I am an experienced, interdisciplinary scientist with training, work, and research experience in epidemiology, disease ecology, and data science.After working 5 years as an epidemiologist domestically and internationally, I pursued further training as a disease ecologist at Penn State University's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics. My doctoral research in the Bjørnstad Lab examined the epidemiology, spatial distribution, and transmission dynamics of peste de petits ruminants virus (PPRV), a Morbillivirus similar to rinderpest. I collaborated with colleagues at the Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology (NMAIST) in Arusha, Tanzania and colleagues at the Institute for Biodiversity, Animal Health, and Comparative Medicine at the University of Glasgow as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates funded program "Program for Enhancing the Health and Productivity of Livestock." I combined serosurvey, survey, and passive disease and vaccination surveillance with models to understand the current seroprevalence and suspected transmission dynamics of PPRV in Tanzania. This work was highly interdisciplinary, involving collaborations with veterinarians, field and lab technicians, modelers, epidemiologists, disease ecologists, and government health and veterinary workers.
As a postdoctoral scholar in the Kapur Lab, I continued PPRV research with a supplemental grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to experimentally test multi-species PPRV transmission among sheep, goats, and cattle with our collaborators at the National Animal Health Diagnostic Investigation Center (NAHDIC) in Sebeta, Ethiopia. Additionally I am a member of the PPR Global Research Expertise Network (GREN) and working group co-leader. In my current postdoctoral position at Colorado State University in the Webb Lab, I have developed statistical and mathematical models of domestic livestock (cattle and swine) movement networks, spatial transmission among wildlife (avian influenza), and vector-borne disease research, modeling cattle fever tick dynamics in a multi-host system in southern Texas as a Co-Primary Investigator of a USDA Cooperative Agreement. I additionally work on vector systems as leader of a working group in the VectorBiTE research coordination network. Broadly, I engage in research on a variety of infectious pathogens of global animal and human health importance. Additionally, I have engaged in science communication efforts through outreach and during the COVID pandemic with the media and on social media as an administrator of the Friendly Neighborhood Epidemiologist Facebook Group. |