Overview
As an anthropologist, I am interested in how market integration influences human movement and infectious disease ecology. My dissertation work focuses on these relationships in rural northeast Madagascar, where smallholder farmers are increasingly shifting from subsistence crops to cash crops, particularly vanilla. This change has wide-ranging effects on the health of farmers and their families, and I use tools from network science, epidemiology, and human biology to better understand these effects with an aim to inform interventions. In doing so, I draw on One Health as an organizing framework that emphasizes the interconnections of human, animal, and environmental health.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
Climate Change Perceptions and Adaptive Behavior Among Smallholder Farmers in Northeast Madagascar
Journal Article PLOS Climate · March 7, 2025 Climate change is impacting the food security and health of people worldwide, and the risk for smallholder farmers is particularly high. While many studies have forecast changes to food production at regional scales, fewer studies have directly ass ... Full text CiteDisentangling social, environmental, and zoonotic transmission pathways of a gastrointestinal protozoan (Blastocystis spp.) in northeast Madagascar.
Journal Article American journal of biological anthropology · November 2024 ObjectivesUnderstanding disease transmission is a fundamental challenge in ecology. We used transmission potential networks to investigate whether a gastrointestinal protozoan (Blastocystis spp.) is spread through social, environmental, and/or zoo ... Full text CiteHow market integration impacts human disease ecology.
Journal Article Evolution, medicine, and public health · January 2024 Market integration (MI), or the shift from subsistence to market-based livelihoods, profoundly influences health, yet its impacts on infectious diseases remain underexplored. Here, we synthesize the current understanding of MI and infectious disease to sti ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
US-Israel Collab: Market Integration, Land Use, and Pathogen Transmission in Rural Madagascar
ResearchGraduate Student · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2023 - 2028Doctoral Dissertation Research: Human mobility and infectious disease transmission in the context of market integration
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEPI-Fellow · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2024 - 2026The Impact of Land Use Change on Transmission Potential Networks and Disease Spread in Rural Madagascar
ResearchGraduate Student · Awarded by National Institutes of Health · 2019 - 2025View All Grants