“Additionally, I had the honor of being the TA for the GHS 620 (UAB/UWI Summer Program in Jamaica). This was an amazing experience to see how public health is applied in a setting outside of the United States and to see the challenges are all too similar to those that we face in the U.S.”
A Brief Overview of Your Time and Experiences with The Sparkman Center for Global Health
I completed my MPH in epidemiology at UAB in 2013. During that time, I, along with a group of other students, formed the Global Health Interest Group. This is due to a gap that our group saw in Global Health awareness in the MPH program and wanting to disseminate information and host a speaker series for this. Due to the content of this group, a natural place for this was to live in the Sparkman Center for Global Health, and we worked closely with Dr. Craig Wilson and Dr. Henna Budhwani. This group was well received by the MPH students at UAB and it was an amazing experience that started my journey in global health. Additionally, I had the honor of being the TA for the GHS 620 (UAB/UWI Summer Program in Jamaica). This was an amazing experience to see how public health is applied in a setting outside of the United States and to see the challenges are all too similar to those that we face in the U.S.
Details of Organizations You are Currently Affiliated with or Employed, Along with Other Notable Professional Engagements
Currently, I am the Laboratory Technical Manager for the Global Health Program at the Association of Public Health Laboratories. In this position, I oversee our implementation of molecular laboratory diagnostics, next-generation sequencing, bioinformatics, wastewater-based surveillance, and genomic epidemiology. Over the past three years, we have worked with over 70 countries in the COVID-19 pandemic response and helped laboratories build their diagnostic and laboratory capacity. Before that, I was the Microbiology Manager at the Wyoming Public Health Laboratory, overseeing all infectious disease testing for the state of Wyoming. I believe that laboratory and epidemiology are linked and having the epidemiology and laboratory background has been invaluable in my professional career. I completed my PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Molecular Diagnostics at the University of Wyoming after my MPH. There, I worked on novel diagnostics for zoonotic diseases. My PhD was supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases.
Insights into Any Upcoming Plans You May Have for the Near Future
In the future, I look forward to supporting laboratory capacity building. With the COVID-19 response, there was a massive donation effort to expand NGS to many countries – this was to characterize the SARS-CoV-2 linages that were circulating. We are now pivoting to use NGS technologies to provide near-real-time information to public health decision-makers for other infectious etiologies. Another big project which is funded by The Global Fund (Project STELLAR) is piloting wastewater-based surveillance (or wastewater-based epidemiology) for monitoring infectious diseases and for pandemic preparedness. Here we are working with six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. We started with SARS-CoV-2 but are now using the project to look at viral hemorrhagic fevers, HIV, AMR, etc.
A Link to an Article or Online Platform Showcasing Your Work
My Twitter / X profile might be the best online platform that showcases much of my work: I travel about 70% (as of now), so I am constantly in the countries working with ministries of health.