TEAM

ALEXANDER WHITLOCK

Postdoctoral researcher

Alexander is a broadly trained computational biologist with an interest in the evolution of infectious disease. In the Nuismer lab, he works to develop new methods to detect the genetic basis of the spillover of zoonoses. Although the consequences of the spread of a mutation that allows a zoonotic pathogen to more easily infect humans are potentially devastating, our ability to recognize these events is confounded by numerous factors, including population structure, limited surveillance, and a poor understanding of the true prevalence of disease. His research pairs agent-based modeling with genomic analysis to develop a generalizable model to improve our ability to detect spillover as well as to identify the genetic markers linked with spillover in Lassa virus.

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