I am currently a 4th year DVM candidate at Texas A&M University and a part-time Postdoctoral Research Associate with Dr. Sarah Hamer. During my PhD, I studied vector-borne diseases of humans and animals with a focus on canine Chagas disease. Primarily, my dissertation aimed to clarify the ecological interactions between naturally-infected mammalian hosts and insect vectors involved in spreading the parasite that causes Chagas disease, with the goal of determining risk factors for dogs, identifying the clinical impacts of infection, and understanding what we can do to reduce the risk of infection to dogs. I continue to work within the Chagas disease system in my postdoc to better understand triatomine-parasite interactions and further characterize disease in wildlife and transmission around large dog kennels.

I hope to use my dual ecology and veterinary training to study diseases of One Health significance, with the goal to improve the health and wellbeing of both humans and animals while better understanding the role the environment plays in disease transmission.