I am an infectious disease physician-scientist who is passionate about safeguarding human, animal, and planetary health. As an Assistant Professor-in-Residence at UCLA, my research and clinical interests are at the nexus of emerging zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, One Health/planetary health, and pandemic preparedness. I also explore the medical humanities through my art and writing about the intersection of medicine and nature.
The overall goal of my work is to improve early detection and mitigation of zoonotic and vector-borne disease outbreaks. This requires translating field, laboratory, and clinical data into actionable tools for decision-makers. Thus, my experience and training spans disease ecology, epidemiology, virology, and clinical medicine at the human-animal-environmental interface. I collaborate locally and globally across disciplines and lead an interdisciplinary group, the Translational Infectious Disease Eco-epidemiology (TIDE) lab. While I am broadly interested in all zoonotic and vector-borne pathogens, my focus has been on arboviruses, bat-borne viruses, and hemorrhagic fever viruses.
My initial career path began as an ecologist and conservation biologist. I found the intersection of human and wildlife health through researching bats and the diseases they carry. For my honors thesis at Stanford University, I studied the potential for disease spillover from bats in Costa Rica. My interest in the disease ecology of bats led me to an NIH/NIAID research fellowship with Dr. Vincent Munster and the Virus Ecology Section to study the ecology and transmission of ebolaviruses and coronaviruses. While I was working with the NIH at Rocky Mountain Labs, the largest epidemic of Ebola virus disease occurred in West Africa. My experiences as part of the outbreak response inspired my path as a physician-scientist studying emerging pathogens at the clinical-public health interface.
I attended medical school at UCLA, where I had the privilege to work with patients in diverse settings throughout Los Angeles. I also built off of my previous research to establish a project in Cameroon to make predictions of emerging zoonotic viruses more useful for national policymakers. Working in these different settings further developed my understanding of how both global and local environments influence our health. It also furthered my appreciation for strengthening healthcare systems and pandemic preparedness.
For further training in One Health and global health, I became a resident physician at the University of Washington. I worked on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, caring for patients and conducting research to better understand transmission of SARS-CoV-2. For my research in the global health pathway, I studied risk for COVID-19 in African countries and data reporting. I also co-created online case studies for clinical trainees in One Health/planetary health called Medicine for a Changing Planet with Dr. Peter Rabinowitz.
Desiring additional skills in emerging pathogens, modeling, and policy translation, I pursued infectious disease fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. My postdoctoral research with Dr. David Dowdy centered on developing translational models for emerging pathogens in Ghana. I also obtained my public health degree at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and was selected into the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) class of 2024. During fellowship I cared for patients with mpox and advanced HIV in Baltimore, furthering my motivation to improve local and global outbreak preparedness.
These experiences informed my desire to develop tools that frontline clinicians and policymakers can use to detect and mitigate emerging zoonotic and vector-borne diseases. I returned to UCLA as a faculty member to serve our local community and address gaps in preparing for emerging pathogens in the setting of global environmental change.
Recent outbreaks of West Nile and dengue in Los Angeles, as well as yellow fever and other viral hemorrhagic fevers in Africa and South America, remind us how human, animal, and environmental health are connected. Multiple perspectives are necessary to solve these issues, and I look forward to addressing these problems together, both globally and locally.