EpiEcoMod
The journey of an aspirant <<Interactional Expert>>
Through the Eye of a Mosquito
theoretical modelling of vector-borne zoonotic pathogens
Thank you for visiting the EpiEcoMod webpage!
This website aims to help field biologists like me, and not only to explore the wonderful and complex world of mathematical modelling without losing faith in humanity. I will share here the path I am following during my theoretical, and practical, training to become what the brilliant paper by Restif et al. 2012 defines as ‘interactional experts’. If you are interested in discovering more about this fascinating figure, have a look at their amazing paper.
Overall, an interactional expert could be a veterinarian with post-graduate training in mathematical modelling, an immunologist with training in ecology, or vice versa, a mathematician with a training in epidemiology, or a person like a me, an empirical biologist who works on vector-borne diseases, mainly with a background in field work, with mosquitoes and bird sampling, at most statistical modelling of the data collected in the surveys, which now wants to make the leap into the theoretical world!
If this is your case, this is your website and here I will tell you all the steps I am following to convert from a practical to a theoretical scientist.
If this is your case, this is your website and here I will tell you all the steps I am following
to convert
from a practical
to a theoretical scientist.
This website is accessible to most readers familiar with basic concepts in ecology and epidemiology. I provide here a brief glossary, in alphabetical order, of some commonly used terms to serve as introduction to the reader or just to refresh your memory.
I am Martina Ferraguti, Marie Curie postdoctoral research at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam (UvA). ’m broadly interested in analysing the impact of ecological processes and anthropic alterations of the environment on the transmission of mosquito-borne pathogens such as West Nile virus, avian malaria parasites and filarial worms
