Panpim Thongsripong

While growing up in rural Thailand, I became especially aware of how the tiniest creatures such as mosquitoes could create big problems in public health. I became interested and started doing research in mosquito-borne diseases during my undergraduate training in Thailand; raising mosquitoes in an insectary, collecting mosquitoes from field sites, and learning advanced techniques in laboratory molecular biology. Since then, I have been fortunate to receive graduate training from many inspiring scientists in the Department of Tropical Medicine at the University of Hawai'i and the Department of Microbiology at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco. I worked in multidisciplinary teams with scientists in numerous fields to more completely understand and address mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue fever. Through these interactions, I developed research skills in ecology, entomology, virology, and bioinformatics. My work on multidisciplinary teams taught me that effective infectious disease control programs demand understanding of not only molecular biology and immunology, but also the ecology of pathogens and hosts.

Currently, I am pursuing a PhD at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in the wonderful city of New Orleans. My research combines interdisciplinary approaches from ecology, medical entomology, and virology to better understand the risks of mosquito-borne disease transmission in the Southern United States.

Matthew J. Ward

Matthew earned his Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Studio Art from Pitzer College in 2011 with an emphasis on chameleon behavior and physiology. In 2015, Matt completed a Master of Science in Public Health from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine following 27-months of service as a Master’s International Peace Corps Health Volunteer in Ghana. While in the Peace Corps, Matt completed his Master thesis on the accuracy and applicability of malaria RDTs in rural Ghana. As part of Dr. Dawn Wesson’s laboratory, Matt is currently working on his Ph.D. in Tulane’s Department of Tropical Medicine where his interests lie in mosquito vector competence, ecology, and control.

Sarah R. Michaels

I am fascinated by the impact of environmental changes and vector-borne diseases. As an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, I first studied entomology at the University of Adelaide in Australia, as part of earning a B.A. in Environmental Studies. I then moved to New Orleans and completed a MSPH in Parasitology from Tulane University, School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine and later began pursuing a PhD. I have also worked as an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Louisiana Office of Public Health, Laboratory Coordinator for Dr. Dawn Wesson and Mosquito Control Supervisor at the New Orleans Mosquito & Termite Control Board. These positions have allowed me to work in the field, lab and office and see the impact of arboviruses from the environmental, vector and human perspective. I would like to continue to better understand the impact of these diseases in the Southeastern United States.

Dawn Wesson

I earned my BA in Biology and Spanish from North Central College, my MS in Ecology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and my PhD in Medical Entomology from the University of Notre Dame. I spent 3 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Malaria Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, before accepting a tenure track position in the Department of Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. Since 1993 I have studied the ecology of vector-borne viruses (such as West Nile virus, dengue virus and Zika virus) and of Chagas disease. During that time I have been funded both as PI and co-investigator by NIH, CDC, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

During the final years of my PhD research I was part of a team that discovered a novel mosquito-borne virus being transmitted by a (then) newly introduced mosquito species, Aedes albopictus. That work was published in Science in 1990, and became the basis for my lifelong interest in novel interactions between viruses and the mosquitoes that transmit them. Since then, we have published on dengue vector competence in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes from Colombia, and yellow fever vector competence in two species of African mosquitoes.

With established colonies of the vector mosquitoes, and all of the necessary expertise and equipment in place for safe virus propagation, mosquito handling and infection, and assessment, my laboratory group is perfectly poised to make major contributions to understanding the risk for transmission posed by the mosquitoes most likely to transmit Zika virus in the United States.