Sustainability Leadership Fellow Cohort: 2016-2017

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology

Research Summary: My PhD research involve understanding the determinants of mosquito-borne diseases in Nepal, and how animal models can relate to disease in humans. It includes mapping the environmental factors, animal husbandry practices, and experimentally infecting ecologically relevant animals. In Nepal, people live in a close interface with livestock and rice fields, and create an environment suitable for mosquitoes to breed, feed and transmit microbes. I am integrating human knowledge, attitude and practice data, mosquito data, environmental temperature, rainfall data to be able to understand and predict disease outbreak. I am also analyzing to see appropriate communication channels to bring public awareness.