Hi! My name is Gracie, and I'm a graduate student in Tucson, Arizona, USA. My research interest is in zoonotic infectious disease and ensuring that we humans are prepared for the next pandemic. In particular, I want to understand how climate change affects the habitat distribution of animals that serve as both vectors and reservoir hosts for these diseases, and how their distribution change will affect the risk of spillover into human populations. One Health, wildlife conservation, and infectious disease epidemiology all contribute methods that can be utilized to aid communities in preventing zoonotic disease outbreaks. It is important to me that my research has data-driven, tangible outcomes that can be translated into policy that communities can use in a hands-on fashion to protect both their environment and their health. 

Interdisciplinary research is at the heart of my interests, and both my research and volunteer experiences reflect this.  During my time as an undergraduate, I worked as both a TA and research assistant in the geomicrobiology laboratory of Dr. D'Arcy Meyer-Dombard at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There, I experimented on the evolution of antibiotic-resistant genes in municipal landfills. I also participated in a fellowship with the University of Chicago. Joining the Environmental Neuroscience Lab of Dr. Marc Berman, I spent a summer wandering the streets of Chicago neighborhoods with an air pollution detection device and survey to elucidate the effects of air pollution and greenspace availability on urban crime.  Getting to use concepts from the sociology courses I loved earlier in college was a thrill, as was combining these concepts with my newly-learned STEM theories.  My most significant employment experience so far has been my fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the Evolutionary Analysis and Ecology Team of the Poxvirus and Rabies Unit. As an ORISE fellow, I had opportunities to participate in animal studies, perform experiments in high-containment labs, attend an international conference, and directly participate in One Health studies during a pandemic. I learned new, and improved upon, previously held laboratory skills, such as ELISA assays, PCR, and biosafety procedures. Not only was I introduced to valuable disease-related research skills, but was provided room to begin a career in One Health at the leading public health institution. 

I began graduate school in January 2024 under Leigh Combrink at the University of Arizona. My thesis is slated to be very interdisciplinary, pulling in not only my advising professor from the School of Natural Resources Wildlife Conservation and Management program, but co-advisors from SNRE’s Entomology/Insect Science program and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. My project is part of a larger project including representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Coconino County Department of Health and Human Services, focused on developing a collaborative response network in north Arizona. I look forward to using data from climate sciences (humidity, temperature), epidemiology (host competence, transmission), and wildlife sciences (adaptation, population) to build research-based solutions to zoonoses emergence. Even more, I’m excited to learn how these measurements are taken, and spend more time in the field and in the lab!