Diuk-Wasser, Maria
E3B Professor
Professor Diuk-Wasser is interested in elucidating the environmental and anthropogenic factors driving the emergence of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. Her research integrates laboratory, field and a range of modeling approaches to predict human disease risk. Her current focus is on how pathogen interactions at multiple scales (within host, population, community and regionally) influence the recent emergence of tick-borne pathogens in the United States. In endemic areas, she studies how human behavior and landscape modification influence human infection and disease. Her current research focuses on tick-borne pathogens, but she has also worked on West Nile virus, malaria, dengue and leptospirosis. Other research interests include landscape ecology, population and community ecology, evolutionary ecology, behavioral ecology and conservation biology.
Research Keywords: Disease ecology, Landscape epidemiology, Emerging infectious diseases, Ecoepidemiology, Pathogen population and community dynamics, Pathogen evolutionary ecology, Vector-borne, Lyme disease, Babesiosis, Ticks, Malaria, Dengue, West nile virus
Gatewood, A, K Liebman, G Vourc’h, J Bunikis, S Hamer, R Cortinas, F Melton, P Cislo, U Kitron, J Tsao, AG Barbour, D Fish and MA Diuk-Wasser. 2009. Climate and tick seasonality predict Borrelia burgdorferi genotype distribution. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 75: 2476-2483.
Diuk-Wasser, MA, A Gatewood Hoen, P Cislo, R Brinkerhoff, SA Hamer, M Rowland, R Cortinas,G Vourc’h, F Melton, GJ Hickling, JI Tsao, J Bunikis, AG Barbour, U Kitron, J Piesman, and D Fish. 2012. Human risk of infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease agent, in eastern United States. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 86(2):320-327.
Dunn JM, Krause PJ, Davis S, Vannier EG, Fitzpatrick MC, et al. (2014) Borrelia burgdorferi Promotes the Establishment of Babesia microti in the Northeastern United States. PLoS ONE 9(12): e115494. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0115494
States, S.L., R.J. Brinkerhoff, G. Carpi, T.K. Steeves, C. Folsom-O’Keefe, M. DeVeaux, M.A. Diuk-Wasser, Lyme disease risk not amplified in a species-poor vertebrate community: Similar Borrelia burgdorferi tick infection prevalence and OspC genotype frequencies, Infection, Genetics and Evolution, Volume 27, October 2014, Pages 566-575, ISSN 1567-1348, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2014.04.014.
