Biosurveillance & Pathogen Detection

A primary focus of my work is developing assays, protocols, and sequencing workflows for the rapid and sensitive detection of microbial nucleic acids. These approaches are often designed for field deployment, leveraging emerging technologies that enable testing in point-of-care settings and remote environments, including handheld qPCR platforms and portable Nanopore sequencing systems.

I am particularly interested in approaches that enable the simultaneous detection of diverse pathogens through multiplexed assays and agnostic metagenomic sequencing. My work has encompassed viruses, bacteria, and microbial eukaryotes, with applications spanning human, animal, and environmental health.

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Wildlife Disease & Conservation

My early research focused on emerging infectious diseases in amphibians, particularly a protistan pathogen associated with mass tadpole mortality events. Through the development and application of molecular diagnostics, this work uncovered a broader geographic distribution and host range for the pathogen while advancing understanding of its epidemiology. I also contributed to Tadpole Doctor, a citizen science initiative focused on amphibian health monitoring.

More broadly, I am interested in bringing advances in biosurveillance to wildlife conservation. Many of the same detection tools used in human health can be applied to wildlife populations, where diseases often remain understudied due to limited surveillance resources. Expanding surveillance in these systems could improve our understanding of pathogen diversity and disease ecology while strengthening our ability to identify and monitor potential spillover risks.

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Public Health & Biosecurity

My recent work has focused on pathogen detection for public health and biosecurity, particularly through untargeted metagenomic sequencing approaches that can detect both known and novel pathogens, including naturally emerging variants and genetically modified organisms. Applied in settings such as hospitals and wastewater systems, these approaches can identify infections early, improving our ability to respond to biological threats before they spread widely.

Looking ahead, I am interested in expanding biosurveillance beyond viruses and bacteria to include microbial eukaryotes. Although fungi and protists cause significant disease burdens in humans, animals, and agriculture, they remain underrepresented in surveillance efforts. Incorporating these organisms into genomic surveillance frameworks could provide a more complete picture of pathogen diversity and emerging biological threats.

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