Bio
I am currently an infectious disease fellow and postdoctoral researcher in the LaBeaud Lab. My clinical and research interest is the epidemiology and pathogenesis of emerging zoonotic viruses which pose epidemic/pandemic threats using one health approaches and emphasizing diagnostics and interventions aimed at benefiting those in low- and middle-income countries. I received an MD/PhD from the University of Texas Medical Branch studying Nipah virus neuropathogenesis and antiviral development, La Crosse virus neuropathogenesis, and completed vaccine pipeline analysis for WHO for Nipah and Zika viruses. I then completed my internal medicine residency at Stanford University where I was a global health scholar and completed multiple clinical rotations in Kampala, Uganda at Mulago hospital. During residency in the LaBeaud lab, I studied Rift Valley Fever virus stability in milk products.
My current research is focused on better understanding the causes of acute febrile illness in Grenada in collaboration with the Windward Research and Education Foundation (WINDREF). We are conducting an acute febrile illness cohort and performing diagnostics for common arboviral infections including dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses. We will use this data to develop better estimates for the incidence of arboviral infections on the island and identify epidemiologic risk factors which could be the target of preventative interventions. This study is also assessing a novel diagnostic system for antigen detections in collaboration with Dr. Ali Yanik at UCSC. We will be testing these samples for hantavirus infections or antibodies to determine if hantaviral infections are clinically important causes of disease in Grenada. In addition, we are performing a pilot ecologic survey of rodents and bats and will attempt to identify circulating hantaviruses in these species.
