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Core Faculty
Derek Cummings
Derek is an infectious disease epidemiologist engaged in theoretical and field studies of disease transmission. The goal of his research is to understand the temporal and spatial dynamics of the spread of infectious diseases in order to inform interventions to control their spread. He is specifically interested in the dynamics of dengue, influenza, measles, and chikungunya. He currently leads field studies of influenza in the US and China, and dengue and chikungunya in Thailand and India. He currently holds appointments at University of Florida in the Department of Biology and Emerging Pathogens Institute, at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
Profiles
Matt Hitchings
Matt Hitchings is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Biology, working on design and analysis of randomized trials for the control of infectious diseases. He completed his Doctor of Science at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he used dynamic disease models to understand how trial design and setting affects the likely success of vaccine trials during outbreaks. He collaborates with colleagues from MSF Epicentre on various trials conducted in outbreak and non-outbreak settings.
Tom Hladish
Tom is a Research Scientist at the University of Florida in the Department of Biology and the Emerging Pathogens Institute. He studies the temporal and spatial dynamics of infectious diseases, with a recent focus on using models to understand why dengue has proven difficult to control, and how we should best use interventions that may only be partially effective. He has developed several software projects to facilitate research in computational epidemiology, including AbcSmc, a toolkit for parallelized Bayesian parameter inference of stochastic models, and EpiFire, a contact network-based library for constructing populations and simulating disease transmission. Tom is also highly interested in education, particularly in helping the public health community understand how to use and interpret mathematical models of disease dynamics. Since 2009 he has been an instructor for SISMID, and has taught courses in Ghana, Cuba, and Peru on various subjects in epidemiology and software engineering.
Affiliated Faculty
Bernardo Garcia Carreras
Bernardo is a consultant for the Infectious Disease Dynamics lab and was previously a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Biology, and is interested in the spatial, temporal, and evolutionary dynamics of dengue, and in patterns in SARS-CoV-2 incidence. He completed his Ph.D. at Imperial College London, where he used theoretical models and data analyses to study the effects of changes in different statistical descriptions of the environment, as well as the impact of environmental “spectral colour”, on animal population dynamics. He then joined the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, a UK executive agency, to work on fisheries-related questions. Prior to joining the University of Florida, he returned to Imperial College London to contribute to a project linking temperature dependence of individual-level metabolism and physiology with population-level responses, with a particular focus on phytoplankton.
Profiles
Rebecca Grais
Rebecca is the Executive Director of the Pasteur Network, a network of 32 member research and public health institutions across the world. Prior to this she worked at Epicentre for 18 years, an epidemiology satellite that conducts research projects and trainings in support of Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF’s) goal of aiding medically in populations affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or with poor health care. Rebecca’s research primarily focuses on infectious disease prevention, emerging infections in Sub-Saharan Africa, and tropical diseases. She is particularly interested in Ebola virus disease dynamics and epidemiology, and has an extensive publication list on the topic. She has also focused on studying the effectiveness of public health interventions and efficacy trials of vaccines and therapeutic agents within populations.
Albert Ko
Dr. Albert Icksang Ko is the Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and a Collaborating Researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazilian Ministry of Health. His research centers on the health problems that have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization and social inequity. Dr. Ko coordinates a research program in Brazil, which focuses on delineating the role of social marginalization, urban ecology and climate in the emergence of infectious disease threats in informal settlements and implementing community-based interventions in these settings. He and his team have also mobilized research capacity to respond to multiple epidemics, which include meningitis, leptospirosis, dengue, Zika virus infection and associated birth defects, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Ko is Program Director of the Fogarty/NIH Global Health Equity Scholars Program which provides training opportunities at 24 collaborating international sites. He is a member of the WHO R&D Taskforce for Zika Virus and R&D Blueprint Working Group. During the pandemic, he served as co-chair of Governor Lamont’s Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group. Dr. Ko continues to advise the Governor and the State of Connecticut on its pandemic prevention and control plan, as well as supporting the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in its COVID-19 response in Brazil.
Isabel Rodríguez-Barraquer
Isabel is an Assistant Professor in the Division of HIV, ID and Global Medicine at UCSF and co-directs the EPPIcenter program. She is interested in applying novel epidemiological and statistical methods to understand the dynamics of infectious diseases. Most of her experience is related to vector-borne diseases such as dengue, malaria, and Zika. Isabel completed her medical training in Colombia, followed by a PhD in epidemiology and an MHS in Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2012.
Henrik Salje
Henrik is a Professor at the University of Cambridge. He established the Pathogen Dynamics Group in 2020. He and his team were previously at Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. His research combines the development of analytical approaches with empirical research to better understand the transmission dynamics of different infectious diseases with the ultimate goal of helping guide control efforts. In particular, this involves working with genetic, antigenic, and epidemiological data alongside information on how populations behave, interact with their environment. He has an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University, a Master’s degree in Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a PhD in Epidemiology, also from Johns Hopkins.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Mariam Fofana
Mariam is a postdoctoral associate working jointly with Derek Cummings and Albert Ko at Yale University. She completed her PhD in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, where she focused on evaluating the impact of novel tuberculosis treatments on transmission dynamics. She is also a physician, trained in emergency medicine. Her current work focuses on understanding immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, and the socioeconomic context of the epidemic in Brazil.
Maggie Lind
Maggie is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale University advised by Derek Cummings. Her work focuses on design and analysis of observational data for the control of infectious diseases. She completed his Ph.D. in Epidemiology at the University of Washington, where she employed high-dimensional estimation methods to improve health outcome prediction among immunocompromised patients.
Maggie Simon
Maggie is a theoretical ecologist conducting postdoctoral research with Derek Cummings and Bob Holt. She uses mathematical models to understand how organism-level responses to environmental change (e.g., slower plant growth in response to pathogens, faster insect maturation in response to warmer summers) scale up to alter population and community dynamics. In the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics lab, Maggie develops mosquito movement and trapping models for dengue vectors Aedes aegypti and albopictus. The goal is to use these models to inform the timing and placement of automatic Mark-Recapture traps for accurately predicting mosquito population size and age-structure in the field.
Luke Trimmer-Smith
After receiving his Bachelor of Science in General Biology from the University of West Florida in 2004, Luke entered the workforce in quality assurance and quality control for a dairy processing plant followed by quality management for a chemical supply and logistics company. He then spent several years in environmental management and services in state government with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Division of Marine Fisheries. Ultimately, he returned to graduate school to follow his desire to study infectious diseases. By challenging zebrafish with Spring Viremia of Carp Virus (SVCV), Luke developed a fish-virus model system to identify time to and quantity of viral shedding and detect altered behavior of infected fish. He received his PhD in Zoology in 2019 and promptly became a Postdoctoral Associate with the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab to help establish a wet lab to study dengue prevalence using virus neutralization assays.
Current Students
Bachir Assao
Bachir is a first year PhD student under the advisement of Dr. Derek Cummings. He worked as a research biologist and epidemiologist with Epicentre, a research and training center for doctors without borders. Bachir is well experienced in the surveillance and control of infectious diseases such as meningococcal meningitis in the African meningitis belt and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.
Bachir is interested in the use of computational model to understand ecology and evolution of vector-borne pathogens such as malaria and dengue, in order to refine surveillance and response methods.
Profiles
Veronique Etienne
Veronique (Nique) Etienne is a PhD candidate in the department of Comparative, Diagnostic, and Population medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Florida under the advisement of Dr. M. Long and Dr. Cummings. She received her bachelor’s and Master of Science in Biology/Biological Sciences in 2011 and 2014, respectively, and has extensive experience working as a laboratory technician at RAPiD Genomics, where she worked on mRNA and DNA extraction among other activities. Currently, she is working on her dissertation defense which focuses on antibody response to mosquito salivary proteins.
Kellie Goodnight
Kellie is currently an MSE student in the Department of Epidemiology. After obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of California, Merced, she applied to UF for her Master’s. Some of her interests include working with infectious diseases and how they relate back to a public health viewpoint. Currently, her research project focuses on conducting a longitudinal study to evaluate the dengue virus from different time points. In her free time, she enjoys watching sports and trying new restaurants.
Yi Xu
Yi is second year Master’s student in the Department of Biostatistics. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology. She is now focusing on a project that concentrates on dengue travel data.
Staff
Adriana Gallagher
Adriana is a research assistant in the UF Emerging Disease Research and testing Lab along with the Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab. She graduated from the University of Florida with a BS in Biochemistry.
Luis Ponce
Luis is a research assistant in the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics lab. He graduated from Princeton University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Before coming to UF, he worked as a research assistant at a disease mathematical modeling group at Hokkaido University in Japan. His interests include statistical and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases, social and behavioral patterns as they relate to disease dynamics, and more. He also assists with administrative work.
Andrea Tamayo
Andrea is a research assistant in the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab and Hladish research group. She graduated from the University of Florida in Summer of 2022 with a BS in Microbiology and a BA in International Studies. She began working with Dr. Hladish in January 2022 where she sought to understand COVID-19 wave patterns and public-school versus overall county transmission in Florida. After traveling with Dr. Hladish to Yucatán, Mexico with the Epidemiology study abroad program she wanted to continue studying spatio-temporal patterns of infectious diseases and how to communicate infectious disease science to other scientists and the general public through science journalism and technical writing.
Former Members
Jacob Ball
Jake completed his PhD in the Department of Epidemiology at UF in 2018, where he was funded by a Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the US Department of Defense. Now that he has completed his PhD, Jake works as a civilian epidemiologist for Army Public Health Center in the Clinical Public Health & Epidemiology Portfolio, focusing on infectious disease surveillance and control efforts in military populations. Jake’s interests are in using models to provide decision support tools for clinicians and public health policymakers.
Profiles
Rebecca Borchering
Rebecca is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Biology investigating spatial surveillance systems. She recently completed her PhD in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Florida, where she studied seasonal dynamics of rabies virus in wild carnivore populations. In collaboration with researchers at the CDC and USDA, Rebecca investigated spatiotemporal trends in rabies case data for raccoons, skunks and foxes, in the northeast US, using mechanistic seasonal models and time-series analysis. She also used stochastic spatial processes to investigate the influence of changes in resource landscape for potential spread of disease among consumers. Rebecca serves as junior faculty member for the International Clinics on Infectious Disease Data (ICI3D) Program.
Profiles
Brooke Borgert
Brooke was a lab manager of the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics group. She is currently a third-year medical student at VCOM, Carolinas and an Ensign in the US Navy. She received her Master of Science from Georgetown University in Biohazardous Threat Agents and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Prior to her graduate study, Brooke worked as a Clinical Research Assistant in oncology clinical trials at the Miami Cancer Institute. Brooke received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida in 2015 and completed an honors thesis analyzing host competence in Japanese encephalitis virus. Altogether, her professional interests remain in improving global health and policy through an understanding of infectious disease dynamics.
Stephanie Cinkovich
Stephanie completed her PhD in Zoology in 2018, during which research interests included how perturbations to communities of animal reservoirs for human disease via anthropogenic factors and vector interactions affect the risk of zoonotic spillover. Her dissertation included piloting a field study in Bangladesh that investigated the role of hosts in the transmission of Japanese encephalitis virus, what is – and is not – known about subclinical Ebola virus infections, and the environmental factors associated with Everglades virus circulation. Her previous work has included a range of bacterial tick-borne related disease topics focused on rodent and bat populations in the western United States. She has a BS in Biology from University of Arkansas and a MS in Biology from Northern Arizona University.
Profiles
Nayeem Chowdhury
Nayeem is a Research Specialist in the Department of Biology, with an interest in exploring antigenic variation amongst dengue viruses. He received his Masters in Medical Sciences from the University of South Florida. Nayeem received his Bachelors of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Maryland – College Park. At his job site at the National Institutes of Health, Nayeem runs plaque neutralization assays on a multitude of dengue virus strains under the direction of Dr. Cummings, Dr. Katzelnick, and Dr. Whitehead.
Ana Coello Escoto
Ana was a Senior Research Specialist and consultant for the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics lab working on the characterization of antigenic differences in dengue viruses at NIH. She then was the Biologist and Lab Manager for the Viral Epidemiology and Immunity Unit at NIH, working on the immunology and epidemiology of emerging and reemerging viruses with the goal of informing how vaccines can be effectively and safely licensed. She obtained her Bachelors degree in Cell Biology and Genetics and is now starting a position as a Scientist and Lab Manager at Astrazeneca in the immunology department.
Kyra Grantz
Kyra was a research assistant in the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics lab. Her interests include modeling fine-scale spatial and temporal transmission of several pathogens, including influenza and dengue, as well as assessing the effectiveness of intervention strategies through both theoretical and field-based research. She is now a PhD student in Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Profiles
Angkana (Hat) Huang
“Angkana T. Huang, aka Hat, is a Research Associate at Pathogen Dynamics Group, University of Cambridge and an affiliate of the UF Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab. She leverages her multidiscipline experiences (undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from Chulalongkorn University, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Mahidol University, a PhD in Biology from University of Florida, and was a Data Analyst and Bioinformatics Technologist at Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences) to understand factors that shape transmission of infectious pathogens, focusing on ones that disproportionately affects under-resourced populations, and to develop suitable means to combat public health threats in these settings. At population scales, she studies how changes in demography and societal interactions impact the ecology and evolution of pathogens. At molecular scales, she works to uncover molecular mechanisms responsible for phenotypic differences between closely related strains. In addition to advancing knowledge through complex mathematical models, she also works to expand capabilities of local communities to improve their self-sufficiency in addressing challenges of their own interest.
Profiles
Leah Katzelnick
Dr. Leah Katzelnick pursued a Ph.D. studying antigenic variation among dengue viruses at the University of Cambridge and the National Institutes of Health as an NIH OxCam Scholar and Gates Cambridge Scholar. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2016, she conducted her postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley and University of Florida on determinants of dengue and Zika disease, spending a year in Ecuador and Nicaragua to work closely with research teams conducting longitudinal cohort studies. In September of 2020, Leah became an Earl Stadtman tenure-track investigator and NIH Distinguished Scholar in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases in NIAID. She is Chief of the Viral Epidemiology and Immunity Unit.
Greg King
Greg is a fourth year undergraduate student studying political science on the pre-med track with minors in zoology and health disparities in society. His current research focuses on dengue and Zika transmission and interactions in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Alexander Kirpich
Alexander is from Minsk, Belarus and received his undergraduate degree in mathematics (2006) from Belarusian State University followed by his master’s degree in statistics (2011) and Ph.D. in biostatistics (2015) both from the University of Florida. Alexander’s was a postdoctoral associate under the supervision of Dr. Derek Cummings in 2017-2019. Currently Alexander Kirpich is an assistant professor at the School of Public Health at Georgia State University.
Silvio Martinez
Silvio is a resident physician in Fort Worth Texas. At the University of Florida, he studied Public Health with a minor in Statistics on the Pre-Med track. He became interested in infectious disease research after studying abroad in Cusco and learning about epidemiology through Dr. Hladish. Silvio is currently working on an independent research project alongside Dr. Hladish funded by the University Scholars Program. He is analyzing dengue transmission and identifying possible risk factors for health inequalities in rural and urban areas of Yucatan, Mexico. His research interests are in applying quantitative methods to analyzing environmental and social factors leading to health disparities, and improving healthcare policy and delivery addressing diverse populations and neglected disease populations (e.g. Sickle Cell patients).
Carlos Moreno
Carlos Moreno is a third year undergraduate student majoring in Biochemistry, and Applied Physiology and Kinesiology. Carlos joined the lab in January 2016. He currently works on analyzing the small-scale transmission dynamics of dengue virus in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, by using a spatiotemporal clustering analysis.
Talia Quandelacy
Talia was a post-doctoral research fellow in the epidemic modeling unit at CDC’s Dengue Branch, working with Michael Johansson and co-advised by Dr. Cummings. Her interests included understanding microscale transmission dynamics and control strategies of influenza, dengue and zika and using historical data to understand regional and global spatiotemporal dynamics. She completed her PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and has an ScM in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from the TH Chan Harvard School of Public Health, and an MPH in Global Health from Emory Rollins School of Public Health. She’s worked on febrile and vector-borne illness surveillance and global health policy at DoD-GEIS, and arenavirus and hantavirus epidemiology/ecology at CDC/Emory University.
Profiles
Susan Rattigan
Susan is a former Research Assistant with Dr. Cummings, where she worked on the ResPECT clinical trial on mask effectiveness for influenza, as well as partnered with Epicentre on vaccine trials for rotavirus and Ebola. She is currently pursuing her PhD at Harvard University in Population Health Sciences (Nutritional Epidemiology), and is working on a new treatment modality for acute malnutrition targeting the repair of the gut microbiome. Her research interests focus on the vicious cycle between malnutrition and infection, and the potential biological interventions to disrupt that cycle.
Diana Rojas Alvarez
Diana is a Medical Doctor from Colombia and received her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Florida for her work on epidemiology and transmission dynamics of arbovirus in Latin America. She is currently a Postdoctoral associate in the department of Biostatistics at University of Florida working with Prof. Ira M. Longini. Her research focuses on design and analysis of epidemiological studies to understand the transmission dynamics of arboviruses and other emerging pathogens. Further, she assesses the impact of prevention and control strategies for infectious diseases of global importance. She also collaborates with Prof. Derek Cummings in the department of Biology studying the dynamics of dengue maternal antibodies in infants and their impact on dengue severity.
Diana Rojas Araya
Diana is a former Ph.D. student in Entomology at the University of Florida under the advisement of Dr. Alto, Dr. Burckett-Cadena, Dr. Cummings, and Dr. Mathias. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Tropical Biology, a Licenciate’s in Clinical Microbiology, and a Master’s degree in Epidemiology from the University of Costa Rica. She is currently working at the Vector Research Laboratory of the Center for Research in Tropical Diseases (LIVE, CIET) and the Medical Entomology Section (Faculty of Microbiology of the University of Costa Rica), which investigates the impact of arthropods on human health. She is involved in projects related to the dynamics of virus transmission by mosquitoes, their ecology, and the status of resistance of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus to insecticides in some areas of the country, as well as in a project related to the use of entomopathogenic bacteria isolated from nematodes for their potential use in the control of Ae. aegypti.
Profiles
Ben Toh
Ben is currently a postdoc in Northwestern University working on COVID-19 and malaria models. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Florida in Ecology and prior to that gained over five years of experience in coastal and marine ecology. He loves working with data and aspires to use big data, statistics, and machine learning to solve environmental and epidemiological concerns.
Bingyi Yang
Bingyi was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Biology, working on modeling interactions between antibodies responses of previous and current exposures of seasonal influenza. Her interests include characterising the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that would impact the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. She is now a Research Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong.
Profiles