Faculty

Gillespie, Tom
Gunderson, Lance
Hall, Anne
Hickcox, Woody
Kitron, Uriel
Martin, Tony
Ruttan, Lore
Seares, Jessica
Size, William
Spears, Ellen
Wegner, John
Yandle, Tracy

Adjunct Faculty

Brown, Carl
Page, Michael
Wilson, Larry

Staff

Byrd, Jerald (Jerry)
Keogh, Carolyn(Carrie)
Majors, Kristan

Post-docs

Chaves, Luis
Prokopec, Gonzalo Vazquez

Graduate students

Salzer, Johanna
Levine, Rebecca

Luis Chaves Post-Doctoral Research Associate Room E536 telephone 404-712-8728 fax 404-727-4448 lfchave@emory.edu

My research agenda is based on the need to understand the complexity of infectious diseases as ecological phenomena, product of history (evolution), embedded within a framework where social relationships can worsen or help to alleviate the burden that diseases impose on the people suffering them. This perspective, defining problems from a wider perspective, though not mainstream among most scientists, has been proved as successful in the past, with a wonderful example on the Early Warning Systems for Malaria developed by Christophers, some of which were used for at least 40 years in the Indian subcontinent. However, the successful practice of science also requires the identification of well defined problems. Over the past 7 years I’ve been working on aspects of the biology of triatomine bugs vectors of Chagas disease, the community ecology of Phlebotomine Sand Flies (Leishmaniasis vectors), the development of Early warning systems for neglected tropical diseases, landscape ecology of Cutaneous leishmaniasis in Costa Rica, within the framework of deforestation under the influence of socio-economic inequities, and the development of mathematical and statistical models for the transmission of vector-borne diseases. These efforts so far have led to the publication of 20 articles in peer reviewed journals and 1 invited book chapter. This work was done as part of my Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (University of Michigan ‘08), my M.Sc. in Ecology (Universidad Central de Venezuela ‘03) and my undergraduate (licentiate) studies in Biology (Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela ‘01).  Research activities have been complemented with the teaching of labs for elementary physics to sophomores in engineering and the sciences, an upper division undergraduate class on ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, a graduate malaria course (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden) and  the mentoring of Hispanic children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Ann Arbor).

Current Research is focused in: (i) the ecology of mosquitoes in urban centers, modeling the dynamics of transmission and  the development of Early Control  Systems with special emphasis on West Nile Virus . (ii) The study of polyparasitism as an emergent ecological phenomenon looking at the population-level regulation of the interactions across parasites with different levels of phylogenetic and ecological relatedness using multi-species malaria (and schistosomiasis) and the New World Leishmaniases as model systems.

Selected Publications

Chaves LF, Kaneko A, Taleo G, Pascual M & Wilson ML. 2008. Malaria transmission pattern resilience to climatic variability is mediated by insecticide-treated nets. Malaria Journal 7: 100.

Chaves LF, Cohen JM, Pascual M & Wilson ML. 2008. Social exclusion modifies climate and deforestation impacts on a vector-borne disease. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 2:  e176.

Chaves LF, Hernandez MJ, Dobson AP & Pascual M. 2007. Sources and Sinks: revisiting the criteria for identifying reservoirs for American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis. Trends in Parasitology 23(7): 311-316.

Chaves LF & Pascual M. 2007. Comparing early warning systems for neglected tropical diseases. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 1: e33.

Chaves LF. 2007. Casas Muertas and Oficina No. 1. Internal migrations and Malaria trends in Venezuela (1905-1945). Parasitology Research 101(1): 19-23.

Chaves LF & Pascual M. 2006. Climate cycles and forecasts of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, a non-stationary vector borne disease. PLoS Medicine 3: e295.

Chaves LF & Hernandez MJ. 2004. Mathematical Modelling of American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: Incidental Hosts and threshold conditions for infection persistence. Acta Tropica. 92(3): 245-252.

Chaves LF & Añez N. 2004. Species Co-Occurrence and feeding behavior in Sand Fly transmission of American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in western Venezuela. Acta Tropica.  92(3): 219-224.