about me
wildlife disease ecologist
i work at the interface of wildlife, livestock, and human health, where animal behavior shapes spillover risk. my research bridges field investigation and predictive modeling to translate ecological processes into actionable health policy.
the trajectory: from response to prediction
my perspective is rooted in a decade of veterinary practice and outbreak investigation in bangladesh, including work on nipah virus and anthrax surveillance. working on the frontlines, i saw firsthand that pathogen transmission is rarely random—it is driven by specific interactions between animals and their environments.
however, the tools we had available often relied on coarse spatial overlap, missing the fine-scale behaviors that actually trigger spillover. i came to realize that improving prevention required moving beyond mapping where animals are, toward understanding what they are doing.
where i am heading
currently, i am a graduate research assistant in the turner lab at the wisconsin cooperative wildlife research unit (uw–madison).
in this role, i am working to fill the quantitative gap between habitat use and disease exposure. i treat transmission as a behaviorally gated process, focusing on when exposure actually occurs rather than where animals overlap. while chronic wasting disease serves as a model system, the broader goal is to develop reproducible frameworks that help wildlife managers and policymakers anticipate disease dynamics in a changing world.