My academic training is in Geography with a primary research focus on health and disease. As a Geographer, I am interested understanding environmentally mediated diseases at the nexus of social and environmental systems. Therefore, my research agenda operates within and across the boundaries of social science and natural/physical science. Within this broader area, I have two main research emphases.

1.Understanding social and environmental drivers behind the emergence and spread of infectious diseases.

This vein of research includes ecological factors (such as climate variability and change, the movements of animal host and reservoir populations, and changes to local environmental conditions), and social factors (such as movement of people, urban built environments, public health infrastructure). My previous research in this area includes work on climate variability and Rift Valley fever in Africa and challenges to dengue fever prevention in Key West, Florida. Most recently I used Global Climate Change scenarios to model potential shifts in dengue virus seasonality in the southeastern US.

2. The politics of responsibility surrounding environment and health concerns.

I am particularly interested in the control of vector-borne disease management in spaces where vector populations span public and private lands, contested perceptions of risk in these spaces, and the internalization of individual responsibility for health. My previous research in this area has included investigating citizen and state perceptions for mosquito control responsibility, the production of responsible “mosquito citizens” within a neoliberal public health model, and exploring the political work of mosquito risk maps at multiple spatial scales.

A bromeliad holding enough water for mosquito eggs to develop

Checking urban backyards for mosquito larvae and pupae