My research interests are focused on vector ecology and the role of ecology in understanding the epidemiology and epizootiology of pathogens. My research also spans laboratory based infection and vector competency studies.
CAREER UPDATE: I graduated last May with my PhD in entomology from the University of Florida. I did a postdoc at the CDC where I studied an invasive population of Aedes aegypti and also completed laboratory studies with West Nile virus and Oropouche virus. I have since started a full time research entomologist position with the USDA Agricultural Research Service at the Arthropod borne Animal Diseases Research Unit in Manhattan, KS. I continue to study Culicoides ecology in this capacity, with specific areas of interest including host associations, sugar feeding ecology, spatial ecology, and larval ecology. I am also interested in the ecology of Culicoides-borne diseases including epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus, bluetongue virus, and vesicular stomatitis virus. Through the vast breadth of ecological research we pursue, we hope to leverage our results to better understand not just the true breadth of vector species in North America but also management and control strategies that target specific ecological characteristics of vector midges.