I am currently interested in relationships and feedbacks between nutrient cycles and infectious disease. I’m using ecological stoichiometry as a framework for answering questions regarding how changes in nutrient cycling can impact epidemic dynamics, how resources flow from host to pathogen, and how epidemics can influence nutrient cycles.
My research program includes laboratory experiments, modeling, and fieldwork at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, CO. Although the majority of my work is focused on parasites of aquatic invertebrates, and interactions between whirling disease and the nuisance algae Didymo in high altitude Rocky Mountain streams, I’m also interested in developing field studies in the mountains of North Carolina, where Whirling Disease was recently discovered in August 2015.