Katie Prager

Research Interests

I study the ecology of infectious disease in wildlife host populations, using a multidisciplinary approach based on skills and knowledge derived from my joint training in veterinary medicine and ecology. My research focuses on using, environmental, field, laboratory, and clinical data to assess patterns of exposure and infection in natural populations; evaluate pathogen emergence and persistence; understand climatic influences on pathogen dynamics; describe physiological and immunological response to disease; characterize infection in individual animals; determine predictors of survival; identify zoonotic pathogens of concern in wildlife and spillover risk to humans; and assess the safety and efficacy of capture and anesthetic techniques in wildlife. Working in Jamie Lloyd-Smith’s lab I have had the opportunity to collaborate closely with other disease ecologists and mathematical modelers to connect my findings to the broader population ecology of host-pathogen interactions, offering essential insights into the biology of the system that are critical for accurate model design and parameterization. I also work closely with biologists, veterinarians, and policy makers from state, federal and non-profit organizations to disseminate our findings to the general public and inform animal and public health management decisions.

Over the last decade, my focus has been understanding Leptospira dynamics in California sea lions and their broader ecosystem. This broader ecosystem includes potential marine-terrestrial linkages with terrestrial populations such as the Channel Island foxes and spotted skunks, as well as urban mammals of Los Angeles County. In October 2020 I joined a Tufts University led consortium – an international team of biologists, veterinarians, physicians, public health experts, epidemiologists, microbiologists, and policy makers from a range of universities and non-profits – and am working with this team on a USAID funded project STOP Spillover (see the press release). This project aims to identify and mitigate risk factors of spillover of emerging zoonotic viruses from animals to humans.