Month: June 2020

I am a PhD candidate in the Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution program at Emory University. From a young age I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian, and so I pursued a DVM at Cornell University directly after my undergraduate degree. However, during vet school, I had my first experience with basic science research and I knew I wanted to combine these two arenas into one career, with a focus on infectious diseases. Therefore, after graduating and completing a competitive equine internship, I returned to academia to pursue my PhD.

I am an infectious diseases epidemiologist and a one health expert undertaking a one health postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Public health at University of Nairobi in collaboration with the university of Liverpool under the HORN project. I am also visiting scientist at ILRI One Health Center.  

Welcome to the first of a new series of blog posts, as I document my mission to explore the diversity of zoonotic parasites in regions of the Asia Pacific alongside investigation into how to better control the diseases they cause.

Inception of a project on Livestock and Maternal Health in Ethiopia

I first visited Ethiopia— the country with “13 months of sunshine” (beware that some heavy rains do come across a number of them!) and the largest cattle population in Africa (crucial fact for a vet!)— 10 years ago and I had a firm intention of coming back. Years later, the HORN project (One Health Regional Network for the Horn of Africa) gave me the incredible opportunity to do so. HORN’s aim is to develop a network of researchers and organisations across the Horn of Africa with the view to undertake high quality research into the underlying relationship between people’s health and wellbeing and that of livestock and the environment. I am now a HORN postdoc associated to the University of Liverpool as well as a visiting scientist at ILRI.

Hello reader, Greetings from down under!

My name is Juan Pablo, and I am a research fellow in One Health at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Victoria, Australia. In this blog post, I will tell you a bit of my (short) academic trajectory and about BLLiSS – Exploring Bhutanese Livestock & Livelihoods to achieve Sustainable Systems – the project I will run as a Soulsby fellow.