Research

Background

I am a postdoctoral fellow in Environmental Health/One Health and a PhD candidate in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. I graduated from the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies with my BVM&S (DVM equivalent) in 2011, and received my MS in Epidemiology from the University of Washington in 2017.

My research focuses on human health at the human-animal interface, in particular the effect of livestock exposure on infectious disease risk to humans, including the direct effect of zoonotic disease transmission and indirect effects mediated by environmental change. I have a strong interest in epidemiologic methods for inferring causal inference from observational studies, spatial epidemiology including experience with R-INLA, survey statistics, and mathematical modeling.

Current research

The focus of my current work is my doctoral dissertation in epidemiology, the goal of which is to estimate the effect of livestock density on human African trypanosomiasis risk in four high-burden countries using pre-existing data (surveillance data, household survey data, and remote-sensed data): Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Malawi. In its final form, this work will include annual raster maps of livestock density in these countries, spatial regression applying the parametric g-formula in R-INLA, and extension of a compartmental stochastic model built by the Institute for Disease Modeling to include domestic and wild animal trypanosomiasis reservoirs and tsetse hosts. 

Other active projects include:

  • Risk of COVID-19 transmission between people and domestic pets (COVID And Pets Study)
  • Post-COVID excess death modeling in Ohio and Washington states
  • Daily COVID-19 literature reports for the Washington Department of Health and The Office of the Governor (link to subscribe)
  • Vulnerability mapping for Aedes aegypti-transmitted viruses in Peru

 

Future directions

As a complement to ongoing vulnerability mapping in the Center for One Health research at UW, which identifies locations at a high risk of zoonotic disease events, I am interested in identifying high-risk groups for targeted surveillance. Specifically, I am preparing several to conduct social network analysis at the human-animal interface.

Publications

My CV

 

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