I live and work in the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area as the veterinary epidemiologist for KAZA's Animal Health Sub Working Group. I am also a freelance veterinary epidemiologist specializing in wildlife diseases.
I began working on wildlife health projects in Colorado as an undergraduate, including chronic wasting disease, sylvatic plague, and avian influenza. I graduated from Colorado State University with a BS in biological sciences and zoology and spent a year working in wildlife veterinary research and veterinary parasitology before starting vet school at CSU. As a veterinary student, I began learning how to analyze data for wildlife veterinary projects, mostly on chemical immobilization of white rhinoceros in Kruger National Park. After graduating with a DVM, I spent the next year working as a research fellow in small animal internal and shelter medicine before returning to school to start my PhD.
My PhD research in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at CSU focused on the ecology and epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in wildlife. My projects included understanding capture success of European badgers being vaccinated against bovine TB in Ireland, diagnosis and treatment of TB in captive Asian and African elephants in North America, and TB serosurveillance in working elephants in Zimbabwe. After completing my PhD, I did freelance work before spending 2.5 years with the Illinois Department of Public Health as an epidemiologist during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the mpox global health emergency.
I began working on wildlife health projects in Colorado as an undergraduate, including chronic wasting disease, sylvatic plague, and avian influenza. I graduated from Colorado State University with a BS in biological sciences and zoology and spent a year working in wildlife veterinary research and veterinary parasitology before starting vet school at CSU. As a veterinary student, I began learning how to analyze data for wildlife veterinary projects, mostly on chemical immobilization of white rhinoceros in Kruger National Park. After graduating with a DVM, I spent the next year working as a research fellow in small animal internal and shelter medicine before returning to school to start my PhD.
My PhD research in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at CSU focused on the ecology and epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in wildlife. My projects included understanding capture success of European badgers being vaccinated against bovine TB in Ireland, diagnosis and treatment of TB in captive Asian and African elephants in North America, and TB serosurveillance in working elephants in Zimbabwe. After completing my PhD, I did freelance work before spending 2.5 years with the Illinois Department of Public Health as an epidemiologist during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the mpox global health emergency.