Lab group members and affiliates
Andrew MacDonald, PhD: Lab PI. I am a broadly trained disease ecologist and environmental scientist. I study the ecology and eco-epidemiology of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. I use a combination of field, laboratory and computational approaches to answer questions at the intersection of ecology, epidemiology, environmental science and public health.
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Kyle Shanebeck, PhD (He/They): Postdoctoral Scholar. Kyle is a disease ecologist and wildlife biologist that has worked predominantly with the parasites of aquatic mammals (sea otters, pinnipeds, river otters, mink, and muskrat). They are interested in cross-discipline exploration of the effects of anthropogenic stressors on the spread and burden of parasitic disease, such as climate change, landscape use, and industrial pollution. Kyle did their Masters in Ecology at the Universität Bremen, Germany, and PhD at the University of Alberta, Canada. They also founded a digital seminar series called Scientific QUEERies which highlighted the work and experiences of LGBTQ+ professionals in STEM, and are passionate about speaking about inclusion and equity for queer people in science.
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Samantha Sambado: PhD student, EEMB (UCSB). Sam is interested in using empirical & theoretical frameworks to understand the ecology and evolution of vector-borne diseases in a changing climate. Current work includes understanding spatial and temporal risk of tick-borne diseases across California. Sam is co-advised by Cherie Briggs and Andy MacDonald.
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Kacie Ring: PhD student, EEMB (UCSB). Kacie is interested in investigating the responses of vectors and their host community to anthropogenic perturbations by combining field and molecular data to inform theoretical models. Her current research aims to examine alterations in host-vector-pathogen interactions and transmission dynamics across land-use gradients in Rural Madagascar. Kacie is co-advised by Cherie Briggs and Andy MacDonald.
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Crystal Silliman: Crystal is a PhD student at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara. She earned her B.S. in Biotechnology from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). Crystal’s research leverages molecular and field data to develop empirical models that predict the impacts of environmental change on both human and ecosystem health. Her current focus is on understanding how extreme weather events affect tick populations and the presence of pathogens they carry. Through her work, she aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of disease ecology in the context of a rapidly changing climate.
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Athena DiBartolo: Athena is a PhD student at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UCSB. She earned her B.A. in Environmental Studies from UCSB. Athena’s research uses theoretical and community ecology to predict the movement of emerging diseases across landscapes. Her current focus is on novel ecological drivers of Valley Fever, a pathogenic soil-dwelling fungi in the California Central Valley. Having spent most of her life there, her work highlights the importance of community-based research, solutions, and environmental justice in regions facing climate change inequalities.
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TJ Sipin: TJ was a NSF REU researcher working on the NSF EEID funded project on land use change and vector-borne disease. He was a UCSB undergraduate in Statistics and Data Science, and is interested in applying his skills in fields like ecology, where the influence of new data science is less involved than the financial or tech industries. He is currently a junior specialist working on a range of projects using machine learning to predict vector suitability, infection, and human incidence across numerous vector-borne disease systems.
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Zoe Rennie: Zoe Rennie graduated from Princeton University in 2021 with an A.B. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and dual minors in Statistics and Machine Learning and Environmental Studies. As an undergraduate, she worked for the Princeton University Office of Sustainability tracking emissions from the university’s vehicle fleet as well as buildings and energy use, and aided in programs to help reduce campus waste generation. While working with the World Wildlife Fund in Sumatra, Indonesia, she witnessed how climate change-exacerbated fires complicated the process of rainforest conservation and devastated the local ecosystem. After graduating, she worked as an intern for the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank where she researched climate-related financial disclosures and climate change-related property damage across the US. Zoe’s foundation in biology and passion for sustainability led her to pursue the Master of Environmental Science and Management at the Bren School with a focus in Climate and Energy. She is working on projects in the lab to quantify environmental drivers of West Nile virus risk in the Central Valley, and modeling suitability for Aedes aegypti and dengue transmission potential in California.
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Former members
Lisa Couper, PhD: Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Berkeley. Lisa is interested in the effects of climate change on vector-borne disease and the potential for vectors to adapt to climate warming. In her current work, she is investigating variation in thermal tolerance in treehole mosquitoes across western North America. Lisa did her PhD with Erin Mordecai at Stanford University, with Andy MacDonald serving as a committee member. She is currently a postdoc with Justin Remais in Environmental Health Sciences at UC Berkeley.
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David Hyon: Former UCSB undergraduate and CCS Biology major, RA, West Nile virus dynamics in California. David has been involved in numerous research projects in the lab, from tick sampling across California, to DNA extraction and PCR in the lab, and earth observation data processing in Google Earth Engine. He most recently was working as a junior specialist on data processing and wrangling to understand environmental drivers of West Nile virus dynamics in California's San Joaquin Valley.
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Lyndsey Umsted: Lyndsey was a NSF REU researcher working on the NSF EEID funded project on land use change and vector-borne disease along with TJ Sipin. Lyndsey was working on a project using machine learning and statistical modeling techniques to predict and understand the dynamics of the neglected tropical disease, leishmaniasis, using climate, land-use, and socioeconomic variables. She was an undergraduate student in Statistics and Data Science at UCSB, and is now in a PhD program in statistics at UC Santa Cruz.
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Abraham Soto: Abraham was a UCSB McNair Scholar and CCS Biology student and is interested in the intersections between ecology, epidemiology, parasitology, and public health and using those fields to address parasitic diseases impacting underserved communities in the US and internationally. His work included tick identification and drivers of Leishmaniasis transmission in the Peruvian Amazon. He is now a MPH student at UC Berkeley.
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UCSB COVID-19 project team: Environmental Studies undergraduate students (L to R, Top to Bottom) Melanie Leung, Jacklyn Vo, Dahlia Shahin, Mika Leslie, Julia Di Lena, Erika Egg. Melanie Leung is a former undergrad researcher for the COVID-19 project team - current: UCLA Geography; Jacklyn Vo is a former UCSB undergraduate researcher who majored in Environmental Studies and minored in Earth Science and Professional Science Writing. She is interested in climate change impacts on human health and social equity, specifically how natural disasters will affect underserved communities; Dahlia Shahin is a former undergrad researcher for the COVID-19 project team - current: NASA DEVELOP Program Project Lead; Mika Leslie is a former undergrad researcher for the COVID-19 project team - current: UCSB undergrad; Julia Di Lena is a former undergrad researcher for the COVID-19 project team; Erika Egg is a former undergrad researcher for the COVID-19 project team - current: UCSB undergrad.
Mauricio Collado: Bren School Ph.D. student, RA, Leishmaniasis transmission in the Peruvian Amazon. Since 2016, Mauricio Collado has developed economic models to evaluate the policy impact of avoiding deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon. His work with the model T21-Peru estimated the forest loss in 2050 and the potential success and synergies of sustainable interventions. Through the POLYSYS model, the projections improved thanks to detailed agriculture, livestock, and forestry modules. The work with Andrew MacDonald is an opportunity to go beyond by incorporating ecology, public health, and infrastructure issues.
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Sofie McComb: Former Bren School MESM, RA, tick distribution modeling and geospatial data analysis; current: PhD student UBC. Sofie McComb is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia in Tara Martin's Conservation Decisions Lab. Her research will combine ecological modeling and decision science to better understand the impact of interacting human threats on the Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystems of British Columbia as well as to prioritize cost-effective conservation and management interventions in the face of global change. Before joining the lab, she worked as a Junior Specialist in Global Change Ecology at UCSB with Drs. Ashley Larsen and Andy MacDonald, working on projects investigating alterations in vectors of disease, insecticide use, and other landscape factors under shifting climate and land use regimes.
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