About Me:

I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Guelph, My research uses statistical and mathematical models to better understand, predict and prevent the spread of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that affect the health of domesticated animals, wildlife, and humans. Our team uses models to generate both short-term forecasts of the location, timing and intensity of infectious diseases as well as "what-if" scenarios to assess the impact of different pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions on disease management. Systems of interest include tick-borne diseases, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, and other zoonotic diseases.  

I completed my PhD under the supervision of Péter Molnár and Marie-Josée Fortin in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dept. at the University of Toronto. My PhD research focused on creating frameworks to understand variations in ecological interactions from mechanisms to networks and improving how we design and evaluate explanatory and predictive models.  Following my PhD, I served as Research Associate in the Mishra Lab at Unity Health Toronto where my research used transmission models to investigate how different mechanisms of bias could compromise our ability to measure the effectiveness of vaccines.

I am also the co-founder of the Canadian Ecological Forecasting Initiative - a Chapter of the Ecological Forecasting Initiative - and an elected member of the Ecological Forecasting Initiative. The main objectives of this initiatives are to build forecasting capacity and to better bridge the divide between forecasting and decision-making.

Research Interests: One Health, forecasting, transmission modelling, ecological networks, and integrating models into decision-making.