Principal Investigator
Jessica Metcalf is a demographer with broad interests in evolutionary ecology, infectious disease dynamics and public policy. She completed her PhD at Imperial College on the evolutionary demography of monocarpic perennials. Her post-doctoral research was conducted at various institutions. She studied the evolution of senescence at the Max…
Post-doctoral Researchers
Benny is a postdoctoral fellow in the Metcalf lab interested in the evolution and ecology of parasites in human and wildlife hosts – especially in how genetic and mass serology approaches could be used to better understand pathogen dynamics in Madagascar. Benny is joining the Metcalf lab in the summer of 2019 after finishing his PhD in the OEB department at Harvard University (a PhD that focused on malaria in rural, remote communities in Madagascar).
Graduate Students
Lab Alumni
Amy is a former postdoctoral fellow in the Metcalf lab. Her research interests lie at the intersection of environment, human demography, infectious disease epidemiology, and health policy. Specifically, her dissertation explored rubella and measles disease dynamics, the effects of vaccine control programs, and potential novel data sources for informing key knowledge gaps. As a postdoc in the Metcalf lab she examined the influence that the environment (e.g., climate change) may have on population dynamics and behavior (e.g., migration patterns), and in turn how changes in population dynamics and behavior influence infectious disease dynamics
Saki was a former graduate fellow in the Metcalf lab. She is broadly interested in clarifying the spatial distribution as well as the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of viral infections and their control measures across epidemiological scales. She draws from relevant public health issues including spatial heterogeneity in susceptibility to vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, and the emerging threat of antigenically diverse enteroviruses in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
Joaquín is a former postdoctoral fellow in the Metcalf lab and now holds a position at the University of Warwick. He is a mathematical modeller interested in host-parasite interactions and modelling dynamic systems. Most recently his focus has been on improving measles control strategies and progress towards its elimination using predictive epidemiological models, as well as using serological data to improve measles incidence inference.
Villyen is a medical epidemiologist who works on infectious diseases, child health, and reproductive health. Following training as a medical doctor at the University of Yaoundé 1 in Cameroon, he worked for four years in the North West Region of Cameroon as a general practitioner before deciding to pursue a career in medical research. Villyen is currently pursuing a PhD at Stellenbosch University in epidemiology within the Department of Global Health and collaborates closely with the Metcalf lab.
Micaela is a former postdoctoral fellow in the Metcalf Lab. She is now an assistant professor at Columbia University. As an infectious disease ecologist her primary interest is the seasonality of infectious diseases, although she is broadly interested in various aspects of disease and population ecology.
Ayesha is a former graduate student in the Metcalf lab. Currently she is a fellow at Harvard University with the Planetary Health Alliance. She is broadly interested in using historical datasets and demographic and epidemiological models to understand the interplay between human demography and infectious disease dynamics.
Keitly is a public health physician trained in France with a strong interest in infectious disease. She oriented her training in that direction during various rotations at the WHO, infectious disease control units and research units focused on infectious disease. One of her interests is the impact of healthcare services organization on infectious disease prevention and more specifically on vaccination, particularly in low and middle income countries. Her current research focuses on the impact of seasonality on measles vaccination in Madagascar.
Ben is a former Postdoctoral Fellow in the Metcalf lab and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University.
Brooke is a disease ecologist that is broadly interested in the evolution and spatial spread of pathogens. Her work aims to connect the evolutionary dynamics of infectious disease with the ecological processes that generate them through the characterization of underlying spatial genetic patterns. Her dissertation work used influenza A as a model system to examine how human mobility affects pathogen population structure and epidemic dynamics. As a postdoc in the Metcalf lab, she is investigating the global and regional spread of rubella virus to identify sources and sinks of disease transmission. Brooke received her B.S. in biology from Pennsylvania State University (2007) and her Ph.D. from Emory University (2016).