Faculty

Professor Ko's research centers on the health problems that have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization and social inequity. He coordinates a research and training program on urban slum health in Brazil and is conducting prospective community-based studies on rat-borne leptospirosis, dengue, meningitis and respiratory infections. His research particularly focuses on understanding the transmission dynamics and natural history of leptospirosis, which is as a model for an infectious disease that has emerged in slum environments due to the interaction of climate, urban ecology and social marginalization. Current research combines multidisciplinary epidemiology, ecology and translational research-based approaches to identify prevention and control strategies that can be implemented in slum communities. More recently, Dr. Ko and his team has mobilized the public health research capacity at their site in the city of Salvador, Brazil to investigate the on-going outbreak of Zika virus infection and microcephaly. Dr. Ko is also Program Director at Yale for the Fogarty Global Health Equity Scholars Program which provides research training opportunities for US and LMIC post and pre-doctoral fellows at collaborating international sites.

Serap Aksoy, PhD, came to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow in 1982 and worked her way to Professor in 2002. From 2002-2010, she headed the Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She serves as editor in Chief of the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and chaired both the NIH/NIAID Vector Biology Study Section (2010-2012) and the WHO/TDR, Molecular Entomology BL5 (2008-2012). Dr. Aksoy's lab aims to understand the biology of host-pathogen interactions--in particular in tsetse flies, which transmit African trypanosomes and harbor multiple symbiotic microbes. A graduate of Vassar College (BA) and Columbia University (PhD), Dr. Aksoy has lectured around the world, and maintains ongoing collaborative research programs with the National Livestock Research Institute (NaLIRRI) and Gulu University in Uganda, and Biotechnology Research Institute (BRI) in Kenya. The laboratory at Yale focuses on the development of novel methods to ultimately reduce tsetse populations in the field, or to reduce their ability to transmit disease. Studies in Uganda focus on the epidemiology of Sleeping Sickness disease. Together with BRI and her colleagues at Yale, Dr. Aksoy has been involved in an international training program to expand research capacity in tsetse-transmitted diseases in east Africa. As the EIC of PLOS NTDs, she works to build research and publication capacity for global neglected tropical diseases.

Dr. Bei’s research interests in Plasmodium – the causative agent of malaria -  lie at the intersection between population genetics, genomics, molecular genetics, epidemiology, and immunology.  Her current research uses a translational systems biology approach to study the impact of antigenic diversity on immune evasion, transmission, and virulence in setting of declining malaria transmission.  She is studying the development of genotype-specific and genotype-transcendent immunity and assess the effect of specific persisting genotypes on neutralizing humoral immune responses and their transmission potential in the mosquito vector.  She also works on malaria vaccine candidate discovery and validation, studying the functional consequences of naturally arising diversity.  Dr. Bei has ongoing research projects in Senegal in addition to many active collaborations in Sub-Saharan African countries in both East and West Africa.

Dr. Cohen is an infectious disease epidemiologist with a primary research focus on tuberculosis. He is particularly interested in understanding how TB drug-resistance and medical comorbidities such as HIV frustrate current efforts to control epidemics, with an ultimate goal of developing more effective approaches to limit the morbidity caused by this pathogen. Dr. Cohen's training is in epidemiology and clinical medicine, and his work includes mathematical modeling, fieldwork, and analysis of programmatic data. His research program is currently funded by NIH, US CDC, and Gates Foundation Awards.

I am a pulmonary/critical care physician and epidemiologist seeking to improve diagnostic evaluation and case finding for tuberculosis (TB) using translational research and implementation science. 

I teach a graduate course on implementation science and mentor master's and doctoral students at the Yale School of Public Health. I lead a Fogarty research training program on TB and other pulmonary complications of HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

I attend in the Medical Intensive Care Unit and the Winchester TB Clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital as a Yale Medicine physician. I enjoy caring for patients and families, and teaching medical students, residents, and fellows.

Gregg Gonsalves is an Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases as well as an Associate (Adjunct) Professor of Law and Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School, co-director of the Yale Law School/Yale School of Public Health Global Health Justice Partnership and the Yale Law School/Yale School of Public Health/Yale Medical School Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency. His research focuses on the use of quantitative models for improving the response to epidemic diseases. For more than 20 years, he worked on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues with several organizations, including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the Treatment Action Group, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. He was also a fellow at the Open Society Foundations and in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2011-2012. He is a 2011 graduate of Yale College and received his PhD from Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences/School of Public Health in 2017.

Nathan Grubaugh joined the faculty at Yale School of Public Health in 2018. Before going to graduate school, he spent ~7 years working in the biotech industry doing toxicology studies, monitoring food production lines for pathogens, and developing early phase vaccine candidates. He earned his MS in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University (2011) while conducting research at the NIH and the US Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (focus on mosquito-borne virus surveillance). Dr. Grubaugh earned his PhD in microbiology from Colorado State University in 2016 (focus on West Nile virus evolution), and went on to be a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute to study the 2015-2017 Zika virus epidemic. Building on these experiences, the Grubaugh Lab uses genomics to determine the emergence risk and to track the spread of mosquito-borne viruses, like Zika, chikungunya, dengue, and West Nile. Specifically, the lab 1) sequences viruses during outbreaks for epidemiological investigations (genomic epidemiology), 2) determines the disease phenotype and transmission fitness of novel virus mutations that occur during outbreaks (functional genomics), and 3) maps the evolutionary pathways that a virus may take to adapt to a new environment (experimental evolution). To do these studies, which include expertise in field work, computational biology, and laboratory experimentation, the Grubaugh Lab is building a diverse team and collaborates with many groups from around the world. Their goals are to integrate genomic data into surveillance and response programs to better prevent and control future mosquito-borne virus outbreaks. Read more about their work at grubaughlab.com.

Dr. Hecht joined Yale College faculty in 2014 as a lecturer at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he continues to teach a senior global health capstone course. In 2017, Dr. Hecht was appointed as a clinical professor at the Yale School of Public Health and has since instructed a course for second-year MPH students on improving health reform and health system management, organization, and financing in low and middle-income countries.

Concurrently, Dr. Robert Hecht is the President of Pharos Global Health Advisors. He has more than 30 years of experience in global health, nutrition and development, in senior management positions with the World Bank, UNAIDS, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and Results for Development. Rob is a widely recognized thought leader and policy analyst with a strong track record of advice to top decision makers and dozens of publications related to immunization, HIV, health financing, health sector reform, and nutrition.

Dr. Heimer's major research efforts include scientific investigation of the mortality and morbidity associated with injection drug use. Areas of investigation include syringe exchange programs, virus survival in syringes, hepatitis B vaccination, hepatitis C transmission risks, overdose prevention and resuscitation, and pharmacological treatment of opiate addiction. His research combines laboratory, operational, behavioral, and structural analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs in preventing the negative medical consequences of injection drug use. Dr. Heimer is a member of Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) and former Director of its Interdisciplinary Research Methods Core. His current work focuses on the contexts and consequences of the opioid crisis in CT and the systemic of HIV, viral hepatitis, and injection drug use nationally and globally.

Dr. Heimer previously served as Principal Investigator of the Yale office of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program. This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded program is one of ten programs nationwide that seek to assess, through population-based surveillance, the public health impact of emerging infectious diseases and to evaluate methods for their prevention and control in the community. The Yale program currently focuses on foodborne illnesses, and respiratory illnesses (especially influenza), Lyme and other tickborne diseases, Clostridium difficile, and the prevention of human papillomavirus infections.

Dr. Heimer received his training in molecular biology and pharmacology at Columbia College (BA) and Yale University (MA, PhD). He began his work on the prevention of HIV among injection drug users in 1990 with an evaluation of the city-run New Haven needle exchange program and his work on emerging infections in 1995 with studies of the tick-borne agent of human ehrlichiosis.

Dr. Humphries has a broad background in public health research and practice. She has been a consultant in the areas of diet and physical activity behavior change, sustainability of community health programs, program monitoring and evaluation, and training in participatory monitoring and evaluation for organizations in Vietnam, Africa and in the United States. She has extended that reach through her Community Health Program Planning course which places student groups with agencies in the State of Connecticut to plan and evaluate programs. Sample projects include: Determining the Best Time to Implement Routine HIV Testing in Jails; Barriers to Accessing Health Care and Health Needs of Undocumented Immigrants; Evaluation of HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and care in Connecticut Correctional Facilities; and Strategies to Reduce Low Birth Weight in New Haven: An Evaluation of the Outreach Strategy of the New Haven Maternal and Child Health Department. Humphries is also a member of the Community Research Core for the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale.

Dr. Humphries’ research addresses interactions between nutrition and infectious disease, as well as programmatic approaches to improving public health. This work has taken her to Asia and Africa where she has studied environmental factors and intestinal helminth infections and their relationship to anemia as well as effectiveness of intervention programs. She is currently collaborating on a longitudinal study to characterize parasite and host factors affecting response to deworming in Ghana.

Kaveh Khoshnood, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Yale School of Public Health and core faculty member of the Yale Council on Middle East Studies. He is co-founder of Yale Violence and Health Study Group and a Steering Committee member of the Program on Conflict, Resiliency and Health at the Yale McMillan Center. Dr. Khoshnood is trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has more than two decades of domestic and international experience in HIV prevention research among drug users and other at risk populations, including its ethical aspects. Dr. Khoshnood is an investigator on two current projects in Lebanon, a parenting intervention with Palestinian refugees and a population size estimation and bio-behavioral surveillance of populations at risk of HIV/AIDS. Dr. Khoshnood teaches a course at Yale School of Public Health entitled: "Responding to Violent Conflict: Epidemiological Methods & Public Health Interventions” which focuses on how epidemiological methods are applied to understand specific health consequences of violent conflicts, including infectious diseases, mental health, maternal/child health, and chronic health problems. The course has a focus on the Middle East and North Africa region.

Linda Niccolai is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She currently serves as Co-Director of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program and Director of the Development Core for the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS.

Her research is primarily focused on sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV. Her current research projects include a special focus on human papillomavirus. Specifically, her research is designed to understand uptake and impact of HPV vaccines with an emphasis on addressing health disparities. Her current HIV work is focused on understanding structural and social determinants of risk including mass incarceration, housing instability, and subsidized housing policies. Her research methods include surveillance, behavioral epidemiology, and qualitative approaches. Her current projects are funded by National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Linda Niccolai received her Sc.M. at Harvard School of Public Health and her Ph.D. at Tulane University. She is currently on the editorial board for Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and has served as an adviser and reviewer for National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conferences and grant programs. In 2004, she was the recipient of the Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Omer has conducted studies in the United States, Guatemala, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Australia. Dr Omer’s research portfolio includes clinical trials to estimate efficacy of maternal and/or infant influenza, pertussis, polio, measles and pneumococcal vaccines and trials to evaluate drug regimens to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Moreover, he has conducted several studies on interventions to increase immunization coverage and acceptance. Dr Omer’s work has been cited in global and country-specific policy recommendations and has informed clinical practice and health legislation in several countries. He has directly mentored over 100 junior faculty, clinical and research post-doctoral fellows, and PhD and other graduate students.Dr. Omer has published widely in peer reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, British Medical Journal, Pediatrics, American Journal of Public Health, and Science and is the author of op-eds for publications such as the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post. Dr Omer has received multiple awards –including the Maurice Hilleman Award by the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases for his work on the impact of maternal influenza immunization on respiratory illness in infants younger than 6 months-for whom there is no vaccine. He has served on several advisory panels including the U.S. National Vaccine Advisory Committee, Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria -Vaccine Innovation Working Group, and WHO Expert Advisory Group for Healthcare Worker Vaccination. Moreover, he served as an academic affiliate of the Office of Evaluation Sciences –formerly known as the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. Dr Omer has received multiple awards –including the Maurice Hilleman Award by the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases for his work on the impact of maternal influenza immunization on respiratory illness in infants younger than 6 months-for whom there is no vaccine. He has served on several advisory panels including the U.S. National Vaccine Advisory Committee, Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria -Vaccine Innovation Working Group, and WHO Expert Advisory Group for Healthcare Worker Vaccination. He has also served as an academic affiliate of the Office of Evaluation Sciences –formerly known as the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team.

Professor Parikh’s research interests focus on translational studies of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Parikh focuses upon several aspects of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, including studies focused on optimizing treatment regimens, novel chemoprevention strategies, drug resistance emergence and spread, and parasite dynamics. Current projects include: (1) understanding host factors affecting response to artemisinin-based antimalarial therapies using a combination of individual and population-based pharmacologic approaches to inform treatment guidelines (Uganda); 2) novel use of a chemopreventive measure to reduce malaria (Burkina Faso); and 3) characterizing the epidemiology of non-falciparum species in sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon). Dr. Parikh has ongoing projects in several African countries, which span observational, interventional, and cross-sectional designs. Dr. Parikh received his M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his medical residency training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. After completing his fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco and Masters in Public Health at UC Berkeley he joined the faculty at UCSF. He has been a member of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases in the Yale School of Public Health and Section of Infectious Diseases in the Yale School of Medicine since 2012.

Melinda Pettigrew, PhD, is Professor of Epidemiology, the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Title IX coordinator at the Yale School of Public Health. She completed a fellowship from the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women in 2013 and was a Public Voices Thought Leaders Fellow in 2014-2015. Professor Pettigrew has an international reputation in the molecular epidemiology of respiratory tract infections, particularly in Streptococcus pneumoniae as a cause of otitis media and community-acquired pneumonia. Current projects utilize next-generation sequence technologies (e.g., whole-genome sequencing, 16S rRNA gene microbial profiling, and RNA-sequencing) to examine the complex relationships between the microbiota, antibiotic exposure, and risk of hospital-acquired infections. Other research interests include infectious causes of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). She serves on the Steering Committee for the Antibiotic Resistance Leadership Group and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and mBio.

Virginia Pitzer, joined the Yale School of Public Health as an assistant professor in 2012. She earned her Sc.D. in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2007, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) and a postdoctoral fellow in the Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) program at the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health prior to coming to Yale.

Pitzer’s work focuses on mathematical modeling of the transmission dynamics of imperfectly immunizing infections and how interventions such as vaccination, improved treatment of cases, and improvements in sanitation affect disease transmission at the population level. Her primary research is in rotavirus, (one of the leading causes of severe diarrhea in children in developed and developing countries) for which two new vaccines have been recently introduced. She is also interested in the spatiotemporal dynamics of respiratory syncytial virus and evaluating control options for typhoid fever. Her paper Demographic Variability, Vaccination, and the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Rotavirus Epidemics appeared in Science magazine in 2009.

Christian Tschudi is the John Rodman Paul Professor of Epidemiology and Director of Graduate Studies at the Yale School of Public Health and earned an A.B. in microbiology and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Basel in Switzerland. He currently co-directs an NIH-sponsored Global Infectious Disease Training Program (D43) in translational research training on leishmaniasis & emerging infectious diseases and is the co-director of the China Scholarship Council-Yale World Scholars Program in Public Health. Dr. Tschudi is an expert on neglected tropical diseases, as evidenced by editorial board and study section appointments and a Burroughs Wellcome Award. He is currently the organizer of the international conference on kinetoplastid molecular cell biology. Dr. Tschudi’s studies focus on the biology of trypanosomes the causative agents of devastating diseases in Africa and South America with special emphasis on one of the fundamental steps in the life of a pathogen, namely the acquisition of infectivity.

Dr. Sten Vermund is a pediatrician and infectious disease epidemiologist focused on diseases of low and middle income countries. His work on HIV-HPV interactions among women in Bronx methadone programs motivated a change in the 1993 CDC AIDS case surveillance definition and inspired cervical cancer screening programs launched within HIV/AIDS programs around the world. The thrust of his research has focused on health care access, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, and prevention of  HIV transmission among general and key populations, including mother-to-child.

Dan Weinberger joined the faculty at Yale School of Public Health in 2013. He earned his PhD in biological sciences from Harvard School of Public Health in 2009 with a focus on microbiology and infectious disease epidemiology. He was then a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies in the Fogarty International Center, NIH until 2012.

Research: The research in the Weinberger Lab is at the intersection of microbiology and epidemiology. We focus on understanding the biological and epidemiological drivers of respiratory infections, including pneumococcus, RSV, influenza, and Legionella. Major research areas include understanding the biological drivers of the emergence of rare pneumococcal serotypes following vaccine introduction, developing novel statistical approaches to evaluate vaccine impact from observational data, evaluating the importance of interactions among respiratory pathogens, and understanding environmental drivers of Legionellosis. We employ a variety of tools including experimental and quantitative approaches. Our work is funded by grants from the NIH/NIAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Emerging Infections Program (a collaboration between the CDC, the Connecticut Department of Public Health, and Yale). You can learn more about our research here.

Teaching: I teach the Public Health Surveillance course at YSPH. This class uses a mix of lectures, cases studies, and hands on data analysis exercises. Students learn to perform common surveillance analyses including aberration detection (e.g., CUSUM), time series analysis, and spatial cluster detection (SATSCAN). Students learn to do these analyses in either SAS or R. There are many great resources available for students learning these types of software including https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/ and https://www.datacamp.com/

Dr. Alfaro-Murillo is an Associate Research Scientist in the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at the Yale School of Public Health. He grew up in Costa Rica and graduated with BSc degrees in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Costa Rica. He obtained an MSc in Statistics and a PhD in Mathematics at Purdue University, Indiana, US. His research is dedicated to mathematical modeling of infectious diseases and economic evaluations of public policies. He is currently focused on cytomegalovirus, influenza, and pneumococcal disease, as well as dengue fever vaccines and Zika virus control initiatives via collaborations with public health authorities in Central America and the Caribbean.

Dr. Casanovas-Massana graduated with a PhD in Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona. His main work is focused on the dynamics of bacterial pathogens in the environment with a special focus in marginalized communities in developing countries. Together with Dr. Albert I. Ko, he studies the survival and spatiotemporal distribution of pathogenic Leptospira, the etiological agent of leptospirosis, in soil and water.

Dr. Grau is a clinical psychologist with training in health psychology and expertise in identifying the cognitive and emotional correlates of risk and preventive health behaviors. She has been involved in the fields of HIV and hepatitis prevention research for over two decades during which time she has worked with syringe services programs (SSPs) and community-based organizations in the U.S., Russia, Vietnam, and Ecuador. Dr. Grau has been involved in multisite, longitudinal evaluations of SSPs and public health interventions implemented through SSPs and emergency departments.  She has experience working with sexually active adolescents, minority and substance-using populations, and people who inject drugs and their families. More recently, her research interests have included qualitative and mixed methods studies of the HIV Care Continuum, technology-based interventions to assist in smoking cessation and substance abuse treatment, and the epidemiology of opioid-involved fatalities.  She has also led qualitative studies on such topics as the quality of healthcare delivery, repeat medical hospitalizations, and access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.

Nikolay Kolev earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame. He was then a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University. Together with Dr. Christian Tschudi, he studies various aspects of RNA metabolism in African trypanosomes. The primary focus of Dr. Kolev’s research is the molecular mechanism governing the development of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei to its infectious metacyclic form, responsible for the transmission of African sleeping sickness and related diseases from the tsetse fly vector to the mammalian host.

Dr. Peter J. Krause is Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. He received his B.A. with honors in biology from Williams College and his M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his Pediatric internship and residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Stanford University Medical Center and his Pediatric Infectious Diseases training at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut in 1979 where he became Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. He moved to Yale in 2008.

Dr. Krause carries out translational, epidemiological, and clinical research in the study of vector-borne disease. His primary focus has been on human babesiosis but he has also carried out research on two companion tick-borne infections, Lyme disease and relapsing fever caused by Borrelia miyamotoi. He is the author of more than 160 peer reviewed scientific publications, 1 book, and 30 book chapters. He has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and on several leadership committees of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and Connecticut Infectious Diseases Society.He has been cited in American Men and Women of Science, The Best Doctors in America, and Who’s Who in America.

Dr. Krause and his colleagues were the first to

Characterize the frequency and clinical outcome of human tick-borne disease coinfection

Identify the long-term persistence of Babesia infection in people

Perform an antibiotic treatment trial for human babesiosis

Characterize persistent and relapsing babesiois in immunocompromised hosts

Develop a laboratory method for screening the blood supply for Babesia microti infection

Discover human infection by the relapsing fever spirochete Borrelia miyamotoi

Discover human infection by Borrelia miyamotoi in the United States (co-discoverers)

Develop a Borrelia miyamotoi antibody assay

Describe the epidemiology of Borrelia miyamotoi infection

Provide evidence that Borrelia miyamotoi may be transmitted through blood transfusion

They also have quantitated the risk of transmission of babesiosis and Lyme disease though blood transfusion and developed several antibody and molecular-based tests for the diagnosis of babesiosis and Borrelia miyamotoi.

After graduating from the University of Minnesota Morris, a small campus in western Minnesota, he joined the Peace Corps and taught biology in a "bush school" in western Ghana as well as an exposure to the tropical insect environment. After a year at U of M, Minneapolis, and a stint in the U.S. Army, he lived in Japan for two years studying Japanese language and culture. He returned to USA to the University of Notre Dame, studying mosquito genetics, ecology and evolution. After 20 years at Notre Dame as a graduate student and research faculty, he was invited to Yale School of Medicine as a research scientist to work on the population genetics and taxonomic relationships amongst the 400 species of South American phlebotomine sand flies. Currently, he continues the sandfly work and is completing a 15-year set of education grants translating current research in medical entomology into K-12 teaching curricula.

Agathe Nkouawa graduated with MSc in Biochemistry from the University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. She earned her PhD in Parasitology from the Asahikawa Medical University, Japan and was a postdoctoral fellow in the same University in Japan. Her main work was focused on the development of a simple and rapid molecular tool applicable on the field of developing countries for the differential identification of human Taenia species. She was then a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health. She is currently working with Dr. Christian Tschudi on the investigation of translation regulation in Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of human African trypanosomiasis.

My research focuses on acquiring a better understanding of the relationship between insect disease vectors and their associated symbiotic micro-organisms. To this end, I currently use the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans morsitans) as a model system. These insects are the sole vectors of pathogenic African trypanosomes, which are the causative agent of Human African trypanosomiasis. Tsetse flies also harbor two distinct endosymbiotic bacteria (Wigglesworthia and Sodalis) that are intimately associated with host's physiological well-being. I am interested in learning more about 1) the evolution adaptations that permit host tolerance of bacterial endosymbionts, 2) how symbiotic bacteria impact host physiology, with specific emphasis on nutritional supplementation and host immunity, and 3) how to use microbial symbionts to reduce disease vector competence.

Dr. Wunder is an experienced veterinarian and microbiologist with significant expertise in molecular biology and infectious disease of public health interest. Dr. Wunder has more than 10 years of experience working in diagnostic reference laboratories for leptospirosis in Brazil, both in veterinary and public health settings. This experience has given him an in-depth understanding of the practical clinical laboratory issues as well as the challenges in leptospiral disease diagnosis and pre-clinical vaccine studies in experimental animal models. His PhD thesis, performed under the supervision of Dr. Albert Ko, and Dr. Mitermayer Reis, centered on translational research applications to identify Leptospiral determinants that enable the bacterium to penetrate and disseminate in the host. As part of this work he developed and evaluated qPCR-based DNA detection assays for clinical diagnosis, incorporated these methods in active laboratory-based surveillance for leptospirosis in the city of Salvador, and supervised the regional reference laboratory for leptospirosis to perform standard laboratory confirmation methods. He also developed an experimental model in hamsters to characterize the dissemination of Leptospira, quantify the pathogen load in host tissues during infection, and evaluate novel vaccine candidates.

Dr. Yang's research is in the field of infectious disease epidemiology with particular focus on tuberculosis. He earned his doctoral degree in Pathogenic Microbiology at Fudan University, China and was a postdoctoral fellow in the same University. Dr. Yang has been heavily involved in leading the design, analysis and management of molecular epidemiologic studies in both urban and rural China particularly focusing on transmission patterns and drug resistance in M. tuberculosis. He was then a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health. Together with Dr. Ted Cohen, he studies the role of both environmental and bacterial factors on the transmission and evolution dynamics of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis employing multiple methods including genomic epidemiology, population genetics, and spatial analysis in diverse study populations including migrants.

Frederick L. Altice is a professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Public Health and is a clinician, clinical epidemiologist, intervention and implementation science researcher at Yale University School of Medicine and School of Public Health. Dr. Altice’s primary research focuses on interventions and implementation science at the interface between infectious diseases and addiction and he has conducted research in several global health settings. He also has a number of projects working in the criminal justice system, including transitional programs addressing infectious diseases, medication-assisted therapies (methadone, buprenorphine, extended release naltrexone), mental illness, homelessness and social instability. Specific topics include alcohol, opioid and nicotine use disorders on HIV treatment outcomes, HIV and addiction treatment, interface with the criminal justice system, and pharmacokinetic drug interactions between treatment for substance use disorders and antiretroviral and tuberculosis therapy. At a basic level, his research focuses on clinical epidemiology, especially in key populations at risk for HIV (e.g., MSM, TGW, PWID, prisoners, sex workers) and development, an adaptation and evaluation of of biomedical and behavioral interventions to improve treatment outcomes. His research, however, has evolved and included development and testing of mobile technologies (mHealth) to intervene with key populations in more effective ways.  His research is especially concentrated in health services research techniques with a focus on implementation science, seeking to introduce and scale-up evidence-based interventions in numerous contexts. A number of implementation science strategies are underway to examine scale-up of medication-assisted therapies to treat opioid use disorder in community, criminal justice and in primary care settings. Most recently, his work has been augmented through use of decision science techniques to understand and promote patient preferences, including the development of informed and shared decision-making aids. His work has emerged primarily with a global health focus with funded research projects internationally in Malaysia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Peru, and Indonesia. He has participated in projects through the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency, Special Projects of National Significance with HRSA, and the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. He is currently also collaborating on projects with the WHO, UNAIDS, USAID, PEPFAR and UNODC. Current internationally funded projects in dedicated research sites that are being conducted in Malaysia, Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Peru. His research and training sites in Malaysia (2005), Peru (2010) and Ukraine (2005) are dedicated training and research sites for the Global Health Equity Scholars Fogarty Training Program and the Doris Duke International Fellowship program.

Dr. Andiman, has been a member of the Yale Medical School Faculty since 1976.
He founded the AIDS Care Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1987 and is now Director of the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Program at YNHCH. Dr. Andiman has published widely in the areas of clinical and diagnostic virology and pediatric
HIV and AIDS. He was the principal investigator of one of the longest running
longitudinal cohort studies of children born to HIV-infected mothers and for fourteen
years he oversaw the Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Program at Yale, a venture
that enrolled nearly 100 children in a wide variety of treatment and natural history
studies. With the help of many colleagues and co-workers he has recently witnessed the eradication of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in New Haven. Dr. Andiman is now devoting his time to the long-term follow-up of HIV infected
adolescents and young adults who were infected perinatally and who are now
transitioning from pediatric to adult health care practices.

Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Epidemiology & Public Health.  He studies the mechanisms by which protective immune responses lead to immunopathology, focusing on MIF-family cytokines and their genetics, which his group first cloned and characterized experimentally.  Currently, his laboratory is leading multidisciplinary efforts to develop immunotherapies tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup. An anti-MIF developed by the group is undergoing clinical testing in oncology, and an anti-MIF receptor antibody, recently FDA approved, is under evaluation in SLE. Dr. Bucala also is credited with the discovery of the fibrocyte, which is being targeted therapeutically in different fibrosing disorders.  He is a co-founder of Cytokine Networks and of MIFCOR, a biotechnology startup begun as a student-advised project.  Dr. Bucala was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Arthritis & Rheumatology and has served on numerous advisory boards for the NIH, the pharmaceutical industry, academia, and private foundations.

Dr. Caccone is a senior research scientist in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, with secondary appointments in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is also the director of a research and training center from the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS), the Center for Genetic Analyses of Biodiversity (http://cgab.yale.edu/), where students train to use population genetic and genomic tools for organismal levels analyses. Dr. Caccone is also the director a fee-for-service facility for DNA Sanger sequencing and fragment analyses (http://dna-analysis.yale.edu/). Her research interests are in the broad area of evolutionary genetics and genomics, using DNA analyses to shed light on a variety of related topics, including phylogeography, landscape genetics, invasion biology, and conservation genetics. For the past 20+ years she has been using population genetic approaches to help elucidate the evolutionary and ecological forces that have and are shaping vectors and parasite distributions. The underlying goal is to help control and monitor vector transmitted diseases by understanding the vector and parasites evolutionary history and demographics and their co-evolution. She worked on the main malaria vector in Africa, the mosquitoes from the Anopheles gambiae complex. In recent years her focus has shifted to other vectors (Glossina tsetse flies and Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus) and on parasites that cause sleeping sickness (Trypanosoma) and Lyme disease and babesiosis (Borellia and Babesia). She is studying the dynamics and evolutionary process shaping range expansions in Aedes albopictus at a global and local scale using genomic approaches to look at the role of neutral and adaptive polymorphisms. She is also working on population genetics and genomic of ticks (Ixodes scapularis) and Norwegian rats (Rattus norvegicus), using DNA analyses to understand invasion patterns at a micro- and macro-geographic scale, including an urban one. A new project in our laboratory is on the evolutionary genomics of hookworms and the genetic underpinnings of benzamidazole resistance.

Michael Cappello MD is Professor of Pediatrics, Microbial Pathogenesis, and Public Health at the Yale School of Medicine. In addition to his medical school appointments, Dr. Cappello also chairs the Council on African Studies at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale and co-directs the Yale Africa Initiative. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in Biomedical Ethics and received his MD from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. After training in adult and Pediatric infectious diseases at Yale, he joined the faculty in 1995. Dr. Cappello oversees a laboratory and field based research program focused on the global health impact of infectious diseases. He is a 2007 recipient of the Bailey K Ashford medal, awarded by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene “for distinguished work in tropical medicine.” In addition to research, Dr. Cappello provides clinical care as an Infectious Diseases specialist at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. He is also co-founder of the Yale Partnerships for Global Health, an initiative that advances scientific knowledge, promotes international understanding, and builds human capacity through collaborative research and training. From 2007-15, Dr. Cappello directed the Yale World Fellows Program, a multi-disciplinary, campus-wide initiative whose mission is to cultivate and inspire a global network of leaders committed to positive change. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Dembry is Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology at Yale University.  She was the Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) Associate Director and Director of Hospital Epidemiology from 1993-2015.  She is currently Director of Hospital Epidemiology for the VA CT Healthcare System. She has held multiple hospital leadership positions at both YNHH and the VA CT Healthcare System.  She was President of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and Board Chairperson in 2016 and serves as the SHEA liaison to CDC's Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC).  She is a member of the Connecticut Healthcare Associated Infection Advisory Committee appointed by the Commissioner of Public Health and is a member of the CT DPH HAI Multidisciplinary Antimicrobial Resistance Advisory Group. Her main interests include 1) the prevention and control of transmission of antibiotic resistant organisms in healthcare settings, 2) patient safety, 3) healthcare facility preparedness for high consequence infections and 4) training and education for hospital epidemiology and public health emergencies.  

My laboratory investigates vector-borne diseases. Studies are directed toward understanding Lyme disease, Human granulocytic ehrlichiosis, and West Nile virus. Efforts on Lyme disease include exploring immunity to Borrelia burgdorferi, selective B. burgdorferi gene expression in vivo, and the immunobiology of Lyme arthritis. Human granulocytic ehrlichiosis is caused by a newly described pathogen, transmitted by Ixodes scapularis ticks, that persists within neutrophils. We are investigating the molecular strategies that this pathogen uses to survive in polymorphonuclear leukocytes. West Nile virus can cause fatal encephalitis, and we seek to understand the pathogenesis of this emerging disease. Finally, we are also developing molecular approaches to prevent ticks from feeding on a mammalian host, thereby interfering with pathogen transmission.

I have focused my career in medicine and infectious diseases on creating new knowledge to improve the health of marginalized and underserved populations in the US and globally. I have been involved in HIV/AIDS care, teaching and research since 1981. More recently, although still working domestically on HIV/AIDS, a major focus my work has been to integrate HIV and TB care and treatment in co infected patients in South Africa with the aim of improving diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of both diseases. This has led to the recognition of the epidemic of extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) in Tugela Ferry in rural KwaZuluNatal South Africa and now focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and reduction of transmission of XDR TB and multiple drug resistant (MDR) TB and in HIV co-infected patients. During my career, I have developed multidisciplinary teams and constructed observational studies, clinical trials and operational research in community settings to address complex infectious diseases challenges. I have also served as a mentor for students, residents, fellows and faculty and other health care workers in the US and multiple international sites, with a current and continuing focus in rural South Africa.

Dr. Juthani is an Infectious Diseases physician at Yale School of Medicine. She completed her undergraduate training at the University of Pennsylvania, attended Cornell University Medical College, completed residency training at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Campus, and was a Chief Resident at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She arrived at Yale School of Medicine in 2002 for Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training and joined the full-time faculty in 2006. She assumed the role of Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program Director in 2012. Her federally funded research has focused on infections in older adults, specifically urinary tract infections and pneumonia. Most notably, she was the Principal Investigator of an R01-funded research project that resulted in the 2016 JAMA publication entitled, “Effect of Cranberry Capsules on Bacteriuria Plus Pyuria Among Older Women in Nursing Homes: A Randomized Clinical Trial.” This publication received widespread attention in the lay press, including The New York Times and CNN to name a few, and achieved an Almetric Attention Score of 1564 that keeps on rising, placing it in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric. In December 2016, The New Yorker identified this research as one of the most notable medical findings of 2016, and Dr. Juthani was interviewed and featured in the GeriPal and Gastropod podcasts. Additionally, in her parallel work with pneumonia prevention, she was the first author on the 2015 Clinical Infectious Diseases publication entitled, “A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial of a Multicomponent Intervention Protocol for Pneumonia Prevention Among Nursing Home Elders.” In addition to her academic responsibilities, Dr. Juthani enjoys about writing about medical topics in the lay press. Her work has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, Pacific Standard, and Next Avenue. Her most recent area of interest is at the interface of infectious diseases and palliative care, specifically the role of antibiotics at the end of life. Additional areas of interest include antibiotic resistant organisms, the emergence and spread of resistant organisms, hospital epidemiology, and medical education.

Ann Kurth, PhD, CNM, MPH, FAAN is Dean and Linda Koch Lorimer Professor, Yale University School of Nursing, and Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Kurth is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and a member of the 2014-2018 US Preventive Services Task Force, which sets screening and primary care prevention guidelines for the United States. Dr. Kurth is the 2018–2020 chair of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. An epidemiologist and clinically-trained nurse-midwife, Dr. Kurth’s research focuses on HIV/reproductive health and global health system strengthening. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIAID, NIDA, NIMH, NICHD), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNAIDS, CDC, HRSA, and others, for studies conducted in the United States and internationally.

Dr. Kurth has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and scholarly monographs and presented at hundreds of scientific conferences and invited talks. She has received awards for her science and leadership including the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research Ada Sue Hinshaw Research Award and the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame award from Sigma Theta Tau International. Dr. Kurth is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Dr. Miller’s laboratory studies the mechanisms underlying the switch between latency and lytic replication of two oncogenic herpesviruses, Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus. Current experiments explore how viral and cellular transcription factors that selectively bind to methylated DNA control expression of viral and cellular genes, how cellular gene expression is selectively inhibited while viral gene expression is enhanced, and how viral DNA replication is regulated by cellular proteins. Recent studies focus on a new class of anti-viral agents that inhibit reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus from latency into lytic infection.

Ruth R. Montgomery is a cellular immunologist with particular expertise in use of novel technology for human translational studies. Her research employs systems wide studies to identify individual differences in immune responses that lead to divergent outcomes to infection. Her group focuses on effects of aging on innate immunity and individual variation influencing susceptibility to West Nile, dengue, and Zika viruses, among others. She has overseen studies of immune responsiveness in human cohorts with successful enrollment of >1800 healthy individuals. Dr. Montgomery’s work is notable for her use of primary human cells to demonstrate immune related mechanisms and illuminate potential avenues for therapeutic interventions. She is Director of the CyTOF facility, co-chair of the University Provost’s ITS Advisory Committee (ITSAC), and Associate Dean for Scientific Affairs.

The Paintsil laboratory focuses on increasing our understanding of the host determinants of individual differences in response to antiretroviral therapy; biomarkers and pathogenesis of increasing incidence of cancers in HIV treatment-experienced individuals.

Jeff Powell is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and an adjunct professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale. He also serves as the director for undergraduate studies and for the Yale Institute for Biospherics Studies at the Center for Ecology and Systematics of Animals on the Verge of Extinction. Dr. Powell’s major research interests include: experimental population genetics, molecular evolution and phylogenetics, speciation, and conservation genetics. He is the principal investigator for the National Geographic Society Grant.

Jeff Powell received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis. He is a member of the VectorBase Scientific Working Group and an editor at Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Dr. Shapiro received a B.A. with a major in English Literature from Yale College in 1970 and an M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, in 1976.  He completed a residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 1979 and a two-year fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 1981.  He completed another two-year fellowship in clinical epidemiology (Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program) at Yale in 1983. 

He has been on the faculty at Yale since 1983, where he sees patients, teaches, and conducts research.  He is currently Professor of Pediatrics, of Epidemiology and of Investigative Medicine and is Vice Chair for Research of Yale’s Department of Pediatrics.  He is also Deputy Director of Yale’s PhD Program in Investigative Medicine and is Co-Director of Education and Director of Child Health Research for Yale’s Center for Clinical Investigation. 

Dr. Shapiro is board certified in both Pediatrics (1980, unlimited) and Pediatric Infectious Diseases (1994, 2000, 2008).  He served a 6-year term (2 years as Chair) as a member of the Infectious Diseases sub-board of the American Board of Pediatrics.  This is the group that writes the questions for the certifying examination. Dr. Shapiro has more than 250 publications (more than 150 in peer-reviewed journals), most of which are studies related to vaccines. He has been the principal investigator of many clinical studies, a number of which have been funded by highly competitive R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  He has also received funding from private foundations and from industry, including from Connaught, from Pasteur Merieux and from Merck Laboratories.

 Dr. Shapiro has been a consultant to the World Health Organization (for both the Department of Vaccines and Biologicals and for the Acute Respiratory Infections Control Programme) and was Chair of the Advisory Group for the Epidemiology Branch of the National Institute of Health and Human Development. He also served as a Special Advisor to the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine Advisory Committee.  He has been either Chair or a member of the Data Safety and Monitoring Boards for numerous clinical trials, including clinical trials of the efficacy of vaccines, many of which were (or are currently) funded by the National Institutes of Health. He has served as a member of a permanent NIH study section for a 4-year term and has been an ad hoc reviewer for the NIH many times.  He has also served as a reviewer for grant proposals and/or awards for the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, the Department of Health of the United Kingdom, the University of Amsterdam, the Czech Health Research Council and the Karolinska Institute.

In 2014, Dr. Shapiro received the Stanley A. Plotkin Lectureship in Vaccinology Award for career achievement for research in vaccinology.  In 2017, he received the Pediatric Diseases Society Distinguished Physician Award for “an extensive and distinguished career in pediatric infectious diseases.”

Dr. Andre Sofair is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Yale Medical School and holds a secondary appointment in the School of Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. He went to medical school at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1986) and completed his Master’s in Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health in 1997. He is an attending physician and Firm Chief at Yale New-Haven Hospital. He is also a lead organizer for the medical chief residency program at the University of Rwanda. In addition to leading many studies in hepatitis and clinical care, he has lectured widely on biomedical ethics and eugenic sterilization.  He serves as co-director of the viral hepatitis clinic at the St. Raphael Campus.

Dr. Vlahov is Associate Dean for Research and Professor at the Yale School of Nursing with a joint appointment in Epidemiology and Public Health. He is also the Co-Director of the National Program Office for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Culture of Health: Evidence for Action Program.  

Dr. Vlahov’s research and practice have been focused on advancing health in urban settings which has been funded by NIDA, NIMHD, CDC, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Gates Foundation. He was the founding President of the International Society for Urban Health. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Medical School in Belo Horizonte, Brazil to develop their programs in urban health, and served as expert consultant to the WHO’s Urban Health Center in Kobe, Japan; the Istituto Superiore d’ Sanita in Rome and the Municipal Health Service in Amsterdam. Dr. Vlahov is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Urban Health, has edited three books on urban health and published over 650 scholarly papers.

He served on the New York City Board of Health, the NIH National Advisory Board on Drug Abuse, the NIH Advisory Board for the Office of AIDS Research, the Board of Directors for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and HRSA’s National Advisory Board on Nursing Education and Practice.

In 2011 Dr. Vlahov was both elected to the National Academy of Medicine, currently serving on the Institute’s Board of Global Health. In 2015, he was inducted into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the New York Academy of Medicine.

John Anderson works on the ecology of ticks and mosquitoes, and he isolates and characterizes microbial pathogens carried by ticks and mosquitoes and the animals and humans they parasitize. Emphasis is placed on microorganisms carried by ticks that cause Lyme disease and babesiosis and carried by mosquitoes that cause eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile fever in humans, horses, and birds. He is in charge of the Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory for isolation of viruses. He is responsible for the identification and testing of ticks sent into the Station by health officials.

Dr. Theodore Andreadis is the Director of The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and Head of the Center for Vector Biology & Zoonotic Diseases where he formally directed the State of Connecticut’s Mosquito and Arbovirus Research and Surveillance Programs. He is a native of Massachusetts, has two grown children and resides in Cheshire with his wife Peg.

Dr. Andreadis holds a B.S. degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology and M.S. degree in Medical Entomology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a Ph.D. in Insect Pathology from the University of Florida at Gainesville.

He is also holds an appointment as a Clinical Professor within the Epidemiology of Microbial Disease Division at the Yale School of Public Health and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pathobiology at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Armstrong earned his undergraduate degree in biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and his doctoral degree at the Harvard School of Public Health. He joined the faculty at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in 2004 to participate in the statewide mosquito surveillance program and develop his own research program on arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses). Current research focuses on the molecular evolution and ecology of mosquito- and tick-borne viruses transmitted in the northeastern U.S., including eastern equine encephalitis virus, West Nile virus, and Powassan virus.Genetic relationships of these viruses are compared to track the origin, spread, and long-term persistence of strains involved in disease outbreaks. Other projects in his laboratory evaluate the role of different mosquito species to serve as vectors of arboviruses by determining their vector competence, host-feeding, and infection patterns in nature. He also directs the Connecticut Mosquito and Arbovirus Surveillance Program that monitors mosquito populations and arbovirus activity at 91 locations statewide.

Dr. Brackney is an Assistant Scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Epidemiology. He received his degree in Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology from Colorado State University in 2007 with an emphasis in arbovirology and vector biology. After post-doctoral fellowships at the University of New Mexico and Colorado State University, he moved with his family to the New Haven area in 2014 to join the Experiment Station. His laboratory is interested in understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms mediating arbovirus-mosquito midgut interactions in hopes of identifying critical factors that can be targeted for novel control interventions.

Dr. Matthew Cartter is the State Epidemiologist for the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health. He is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and an associate clinical professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine. He teaches a course for Masters in Public Health students on acute disease outbreak investigations at both UConn and Yale. Dr. Cartter is a past president of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. His research interests include the history of epidemics.

Dr. Cartter is also the Director of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program (EIP), a joint effort between the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health, the Yale Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded program is one of eleven programs nationwide that seek to assess, through population-based surveillance, the public health impact of emerging infectious diseases and to evaluate methods for their prevention and control in the community (http://www.cdc.gov/ncpdcid/deiss/eip/index.html).

Dr Charalambous is the Deputy Chief Scientific Officer at The Aurum Institute.  She is a South African trained medical doctor with a PhD in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  She has been involved in HIV program implementation since 1998, prior to antiretroviral therapy implementation, and was instrumental in the first large antiretroviral implementation project in the Anglo American companies in 2003 - 2007.  She has been Principal Investigator of a number of cluster randomized and observational studies in issues of HIV and TB implementation and epidemiology in special populations.  She has a special interest in TB and special populations such as miners, inmates, and TB contacts. She is the chair of the Monitoring and Evaluation working group of the South African National Department of Corrections Task Team and the co-chair of one of the working groups of the South African National TB Think Tank.  She currently heads the Secretariat of the TB Think Tank.  She has supported and supervised a number of foreign-based and local students throughout the years. 

Professor Federico Costa is interested in eco-epidemiological drivers of zoonotic diseases in urban environments using intensive field and laboratory data. Current areas of interest include mechanisms involved in the transmission of leptospirosis and the ecological and sociological factors that affect the likelihood of human and animal infection in Brazil and the evaluation of effectiveness of basic sanitation and rodent control based intervention to prevent leptospirosis. Recently, Dr. Costa has coordinated field and hospital based studies in Salvador, Brazil to respond to the recent outbreak of Zika virus infection and Congenital Zika Syndrome.

Dr. Croda is chief of the Department of Communicable Diseases at the Secretary of Health Surveillance in Brazil. He is an infectious disease physician-scientist and has served as the Principal Investigator for a series of studies involving active surveillance, molecular epidemiology and prospective cohort investigations for TB. He is particularly interested in understanding how prison contribute globally to TB epidemics, with an ultimate goal of developing more effective intervetions to control TB in the prison and community using translational research and implementation science. Dr. Croda's training is in epidemiology and clinical medicine, and his work includes epidemiology, fieldwork, and analysis of programmatic data. His research program is currently funded by the NIH and by Brazilian research agencies such as CNPq and CAPES.

Clinical Professor of Epidemiology

Research Interests: The epidemiology of infectious diseases of public health import, particularly the relationship between socioeconomic status and these diseases; infectious disease control.

Dr. Hadler currently is a senior infectious disease and medical epidemiology consultant to the Connecticut and Yale Emerging Infections Programs, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. He is involved in the description of health disparities using socioeconomic measures, and most projects conducted by the Connecticut and Yale EIPs, emphasis on epidemiology and prevention of human papilloma virus-related disease, influenza, and bacterial intestinal and respiratory infections.

Dr. Hadler’s main research interests are in the epidemiology, prevention and control of infectious diseases of public health importance in the U.S. For 25 years, from 1984-2008, he was the Connecticut State Epidemiologist and director of the state’s infectious disease surveillance and control programs. In that capacity he lead investigations into many infectious disease outbreaks and emerging infectious disease problems such as HIV, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, West Nile virus, anthrax, SARS, shiga-toxin producing E. coli and MRSA, and evaluated the impact of new vaccines on the epidemiology of their target diseases.

During his decades-long career Dr. Kaslow has organized and collaborated on initiatives spanning a wide spectrum of conditions. Early research topics included healthcare-associated infections, Lyme disease, infections in pregnancy, and autoimmune diseases such as reactive arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. At the inception of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, he initiated and guided the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study; operating for more than 30 years, the MACS has continued to produce a wealth of information about nearly every aspect of HIV infection. In that context he began studying the role of host genetics in the acquisition and progression of HIV infection, and he pursued that line of inquiry in a number of other US and African cohorts. The investigative teams he led or joined made groundbreaking discoveries about polymorphisms in genes encoding HLA and chemokine receptor molecules exert critical differential control of the cell-mediated response to HIV. This approach has been extended in work by him and others documenting contributions of HLA to the variable responses made to vaccines (e.g., for HIV, hepatitis B and anthrax).

Goudarz Molaei is a research scientist conducting studies on the ecology and biology of mosquito and tick vectors of human pathogens, and on their respective roles in enzootic and epidemic transmission of arboviruses, as well as tick-associated diseases at the Center for Vector Biology & Zoonotic Diseases, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES). He is director of the CAES Tick Testing Program for Lyme and Allied Diseases. At the Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Molaei, as an associate clinical professor, co-teaches a course in Biology of Insect Disease Vectors, is collaborating on research on the ecology and biology of mosquito and tick vectors of human pathogens, and advises students.

Mitermayer Reis holds a medical degree from the Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health, a Master's Degree in Human Pathology from the Federal University of Bahia and a PhD in Human Pathology from the Federal University of Bahia/ He did postdoctoral work at Case Western Reserve University and the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Researcher category 1A of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq), full professor at the Federal University of Bahia, full professor at the Bahian School of Medicine and Public Health and associate visiting professor at the Yale School of Public Health.

He is a founder associate of the Center for Management and Strategic Studies and is currently head of the Laboratory of Pathology and Molecular Biology at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, executive coordinator of the Northeast Network of Biotechnology (RENORBIO). He is a member of the Academy of Sciences of Bahia, the Academy of Medicine of Bahia, the Scientific Technical Council of the Federation of Industries of Bahia (FIEB) and of the State Council of Science and Technology (CONCITEC). He supports the State of Bahia Research - FAPESB, and he is coordinator of the Postgraduate Course in Biotechnology in Health and Investigative Medicine.

Reis has served as director of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation for four terms and is president of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine, and studies clinical and molecular epidemiology and immunopathogenesis of parasitic infectious diseases oriented to technological development and innovation with emphasis on Arbovirus, Chagas, Schistosomiasis, Viral Hepatitis, Leptospirosis and Bacterial Meningitis.

Nancy Gore Saravia, MSc, PhD is the Scientific Director of the Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento e Investigaciones Médicas (CIDEIM) in Cali, Colombia. Her career focus is the Immunobiology of Infectious Disease and Research Capacity and Institutional Development based on interdisciplinary investigation in tropical infectious disease.    Her research has primarily been devoted to understanding the host-Leishmania relationship in the endemic context, from the natural history of infection and disease in affected human populations to the parasites, host cells and effector molecules involved as well as pharmacokinetic studies and clinical trials of anti-leishmanial drugs.  These studies documented the epidemiologic importance of asymptomatic infection, reactivation of disease, and re-infection in endemic foci and identified patient populations that are clinically susceptible to chronic and recurrent leishmaniasis. These studies also revealed an association between clinical susceptibility (chronic and recurrent disease) and infection and survival of Leishmania in the corresponding patient macrophages, the bases of which may also be linked to the outcome of treatment.    

The scope of her ongoing research includes use of mHealth tools and rapid diagnostics to overcome barriers to access to treatment, the contribution of parasite drug resistance and host innate responses to therapeutic response, and biomarkers of therapeutic outcome. 

Dr. Saravia has collaborated with Yale faculty in the School of Public Health and School of Medicine since 2003 in the development and conduct of research and training US NIH supported R01, ICIDR and Fogarty Global Infectious Disease Research Training program grants.   CIDEIM is a WHO Collaborating Center in Leishmaniasis, and the Latin American Research Training Center supported by the WHO Special Program for Tropical Disease Research.  Several Yale Downs Fellows have been hosted by CIDEIM and a Howard Hughes scholar from Yale School of Medicine and a Whittaker Fellow from the School of Engineering have conducted research training in CIDEIM.

Commander Tyler M. Sharp, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dengue Branch in San Juan, Puerto Rico. A native of Bowling Green, Ohio, he attended secondary school in the Chicago area and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He received additional training at Montana State University – Bozeman and the Medical Research Council Division of Virology in Glasgow, Scotland. He completed his doctorate in Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, in the laboratory of Dr. Mary K. Estes where he studied the molecular mechanisms of norovirus pathogenesis. During his graduate study, he received additional training at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, Japan. He joined CDC in 2010 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer stationed at CDC Dengue Branch. His current public health and research interests are the epidemiology and pathophysiology of emerging infectious diseases, including dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and leptospirosis. He enjoys international travel, hiking and camping, scuba diving, and avoiding infection with the pathogens he studies (thus far with limited success).

Dr. Lynn Sosa received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2005-2007, assigned to the Connecticut Department of Public Health.  Since October 2007, Dr. Sosa has been with the Connecticut Department of Public Health and currently serves as the Coordinator of the TB and STD Control Programs and the Deputy State Epidemiologist.

Senior Scientist Childs’ area of research includes theecological dynamics of directly-transmitted zoonotic viruses, including the hantaviruses, arenaviruses and rabies, and vector-borne bacteria, including rickettsia, bartonella and borrelia. Prior to coming to Yale in 2004, Dr. Childs served as the Chief of the Viral and Rickettial Zoonoses Branch at CDC.

His recent interests and research, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Albert Ko, Division Chief at Yale, and Fleur Porter, an MPH candidate, focus on the ecoepidemiology of intra- and inter-specific transmission of leptospires in an urban slum setting in Salvador, Brazil. The Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) is the principal reservoir host for leptospires causing human disease in Salvador, however, scant knowledge exists on the mechanisms of acquisition, maintenance and shedding of this bacterium by rats. Humans are directly infected by leptospires through contact with environments contaminated with spirochetes shed in the urine of infected rats Defining parameters of the natural history of leptospiral infection within individual rats and within rat populations, coupled with determinations of critical environmental and ecological features underlying the distribution and density of rat populations, will help elucidate risk factors for human infection and disease.

Ben Fontes has previously worked in the Radiation Protection and Biological Safety Departments in the Environmental Health and Safety Office at Harvard University, serving as Health Physics Technologist, Assistant Biosafety Officer and Associate Biosafety Officer. At Harvard, he assisted with the implementation of the Biosafety program at both the University and at Harvard-affiliated hospitals. He began work at Yale in 1995, where he is currently responsible for management of the campus Biosafety Program and co-management of the EHS Safety Advisor Program. Ben has an undergraduate degree in biology from Wesleyan University (1986) and a MPH in industrial hygiene from the University of Michigan (1995). He is a Certified Biological Safety Professional (1998) and an active member of the American Biological Safety Association (ABSA), where he has served as the 2010 President of the association. He also previously served as an ABSA Councilor (2002 – 2005) and Chair of the ABSA Training and Education Committee (1999 – 2002). Ben is currently on the executive board of the International Federation of Biosafety Associations (IFBA) where he has served as Chair from 2014 – 2017. He has served for the past 3 years as a biosafety twin for new biosafety professionals in the Middle East and North Africa as part of a Sandia National Laboratories twinning and mentorship program, helping his assigned partners with guidance on their biosafety and biosecurity projects.

Mr. Meek is the associate director of the Yale office of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program, a joint effort between the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health, the Yale School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. This CDC-funded program is one of ten programs nationwide that seek to assess, through population-based surveillance, the public health impact of emerging infectious diseases and to evaluate methods for their prevention and control in the community (http://www.cdc.gov/ncpdcid/deiss/eip/index.html).

In the EIP, Mr. Meek has overseen the establishment and maintenance of regional and statewide population-based surveillance systems for multiple emerging infections (foodborne disease, tickborne disease, liver disease, HPV disease, fungal disease, respiratory disease) and, based on surveillance findings, implemented research studies (case-control, cohort, vaccine effectiveness) to identify risk factors and evaluate prevention programs. The Yale office of the Connecticut EIP has provided training in surveillance and applied public health to over 200 MPH/doctoral students through internships, practicum experiences and thesis projects.

Ms. Yousey-Hindes completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and Immunology at University of Rochester in Rochester, NY. She received her Master of Public Health degree from the Yale School of Public Health. She has worked in the area of infectious disease epidemiology since 2007 for both the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and the New York State Department of Health in addition to her current position at the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program.

Dr. Armstrong, senior research scientist and lecturer in Epidemiology, Yale University School of Medicine, retired in 1997, having served on the Yale faculty since 1968. Her career at the Medical School started in the Microbiology Department and when that department was dissolved in 1974 continued in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health until her retirement.

Born in Paris, Dr. Armstrong was educated in Britain. She obtained her medical degree from the Royal Free Hospital of Medicine, London University. She and her husband, Frank F. Richards (also a physician), came to the States in 1964, she as a research fellow in hematology at Tufts-New England Medical Center, her husband as a research associate in medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1968, they both moved to Yale University School of Medicine where each took up a faculty position.

Much of Dr. Armstrong’s early career focused on the study of retroviruses in mouse models. With the appearance of a novel retrovirus, the AIDS virus, in the early 1980s, her attention turned to the study of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, which, before the advent of retroviral therapy, was a common cause of death in AIDS patients. The focus of Dr. Armstrong’s investigations centered on the in vitro cultivation of Pneumocystis carinii, an opportunistic protozoon pathogen, and the delineation of the pathogen’s interaction with host lung tissue. Her studies led to some forty research papers and reviews.

In the later part of her career, Dr. Armstrong was increasingly involved in administrative duties, the most important of which was as chair of the university-wide Yale Animal Care and Use Committee, from its inception in 1985 until her retirement in 1997. This committee was mandated by the Public Health Service (PHS) to approve and monitor the use and care of animals in research and teaching as required by the revised PHS Policy on the Human Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Dr. Armstrong was a member of the Yale Biological Safety Advisory Committee from 1984 to 1991 and was acting vice-chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health from 1993 to 1995.

In 2015, Dr. Armstrong was inducted into the Winslow Centennial Honor Roll for Excellence and Service which was established for this centennial year to honor 100 alumni and/or faculty of who made outstanding contributions to public health during the Yale School of Public Health’s first 100 years.

Durland Fish, a native of Berwick, Pennsylvania, received his B.S. degree at Albright College in Reading, PA in 1966 with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. Upon graduation he was employed with the Pennsylvania Department of Health as a sanitarian and in 1967 became Regional Vector Control Coordinator in charge of insect and rodent-borne diseases. His investigation of a fatal case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in 1968 stimulated a career in public health entomology. In 1970, Fish entered the graduate program in entomology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst where he received his M.S. in 1973. He went on to continue his graduate studies at the University of Florida where he received his Ph.D. in entomology with a minor in ecology in 1976.

Fish studied vector ecology at the University of Notre Dame with a fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. He went to New York in 1980 as Assistant Professor of Biology at Fordham University, where he taught ecology and medical entomology. In 1985, he joined the faculty at New York Medical College where he was Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Preventative Medicine and Director of the Medical Entomology Laboratory, and became Director of Lyme Disease Research Center in 1990.

He joined the faculty at Yale School of Public Health in 1994 where became Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases with a secondary appointment to Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Fish also served on the faculty of the interdisciplinary Microbiology Ph.D. Program and the Yale College Environmental Studies Program. He is founding Director of the Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies Center for EcoEpidemiology and serves on the Steering Committee of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute. His research on epidemiology and prevention of vector-borne disease has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sandia National Laboratory, New York State Dept. of Health, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Mathers Charitable Foundation, and the American Lyme Disease Foundation. He has been awarded the honorary degrees of Doctor of Science from Albright College and Master of Arts from Yale University. He was recipient of a Mentor of the Year Award at Yale School of Public Health in 2012 and received the Hoogstraal Medal in Medical Entomology from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and hygiene in 2015.

Fish retired on July 1, 2015 and is now Professor Emeritus at Yale School of Public Health where he remains active in research, writing, and advising students.

He is a member of many professional scientific societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Entomological Society of America and the Ecological Society of America. He has served as chairman of the Medical and Veterinary Entomology Section of the Entomological Society of America, president of the New York Entomological Society, and president of the International Northwestern Conference on Diseases in Nature Communicable to Man. He has also served on Executive Boards for the Society for Vector Ecology, Acarological Society of America, and the American Committee on Medical Entomology of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He has served on Editorial Boards for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Journal of Medical Entomology, and is Founding Editor of Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. He has presented over 100 papers at professional meetings and has published more than 130 scientific journal articles in entomology, ecology, and medicine. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, Newsweek, Science, Science News, Audubon Magazine and the New York Times, and he has appeared on numerous television programs including NBC News, NBC Today Show, ABC Nightline, CBS This Morning, and was featured in documentaries produced by The Discovery Channel and BBC.

The research in Professor McMahon-Pratt's laboratory is concerned with the parasitic protozoan, Leishmania, which causes a spectrum of diseases known as leishmaniasis. The laboratory is interested in understanding the immune effector mechanisms in the mammalian host that are involved in the control of infection and/or pathogenesis, with the aim to developing a vaccine against leishmaniasis. The laboratory has defined target vaccine candidate molecules and is collaborating with the University of Iowa and Cambridge University in a project directed toward the development of a multi-subunit vaccine. In addition, we have collaborated with Dr. Tarek Fahmy (Yale Bioengineering) in the development of nanoparticle therapeutic treatment delivery system for leishmaniasis. In other studies, the laboratory also collaborates Drs. Al Bothwell and Eddie Chae (Immunobiology) investigating the role of DKK-1 in the regulation of the innate and T cell responses to Leishmania infection. We have long-term collaboration with scientists in Colombia. Currently, Professor McMahon-Pratt is director of NIAID R01 and Fogarty (NIH)-sponsored Programs with Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento e Investigaciones Médicas (CIDEIM) in Colombia. These programs are focused on understanding the pathology of leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania (Viannia), which predominates in South America, with the objective of designing immunological approaches for treatment and control.

Curtis Patton, PhD, Professor at YSPH retired after 36 years at Yale in 2006. Dr. Patton has been a prominent figure not only at YSPH but throughout the University. He has served in a variety of administrative capacities including Division Head, Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases and Acting Head of Global Health. In 2004, Dr. Patton was asked by President Levin to help re-establish and Chair the University Minority Affairs Committee (MAC). He has also served as the Director of International Medical Studies and Chair of the Committee on International Health.

Nancy Ruddle is known for her discovery and analysis of lymphotoxin, a protein produced by T cells that plays a role in the protective immune system and destroys tumor cells. She and researchers in her laboratory have engaged in research on the lymphotoxin/tumor necrosis factor family, their regulation and roles in lymphoid organ development and pathogenesis of viral and autoimmune disease. The more than 170 scientific articles Ruddle has authored or co-authored have explored the immunology of such diseases as leukemia, experimental allergic encephalomyelitis and Leishmania amazonensis infection, among others. She continues to generate insight into the regulation and function of lymphoid organs through her analysis of the vessels crucial for their function.

Emeritus Professor Gregory Tignor’s research focused on the identification, characterization and pathogenesis of zoonotic viruses that cause encephalitis in humans, including rabies, Ebola, Rift Valley Fever and Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever. He is also known for developing spotted slides that could be used in the field for rapid diagnosis using only small drops of serum. He served as deputy director of the Yale Arbovirus Research Unit.