About

No two organisms respond to infection in the same way—a phenomenon with far-reaching implications for infectious disease dynamics, ecology, and evolution. Nevertheless, variation in individual traits, including immune and behavioral responses to infection, has traditionally been studied separately from population-level aspects of epidemiology, such as disease prevalence and pathogen transmission. My research suggests that we cannot fully understand these individual- or population-level processes in isolation. I incorporate techniques from immunology, eco-physiology, and animal behavior to answer two main questions at the interface of physiology and ecology: 1) why, mechanistically and evolutionarily, do individuals vary in their immune and behavioral responses to infection? and 2) how does this variation shape pathogen transmission and evolution?

I principally study these questions in songbirds, but I have collaborated broadly across taxa, focusing on ecological interfaces shared by wildlife, humans, and domestic or agriculturally important animals.

Education

B.S. Biology, Duke University; Ph.D. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University; Post-Doctoral Fellow Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech

Research Interests

• Disease ecology at in mixed-use landscapes

• Ecological immunology and physiology

• Animal behavior