Jonathan Oliver, PhD

I am a public health entomologist specializing in vector-borne diseases. My research expertise lies primarily in the relationship between ticks and emerging tick-borne pathogens relevant to human health. Understanding the relationship between ticks and their bacteria is essential to public health on a number of levels including accurate risk assessment and epidemiological modeling, as well as efforts to actively disrupt the continued transmission of these diseases. Some of my research themes include the effects of pathogen/vector/vertebrate reservoir interactions on disease transmission, environmental and microbiotic factors affecting vector range expansion and human exposure to disease, development of transgenic or paratransgenic ticks incapable of transmitting human pathogens, and the discovery of target proteins for limiting pathogen establishment in vectors and transmission to humans.