Achievement

Fellows in our second cohort conducted collaborative research on malaria dynamics in Hispaniola. They developed models of disease dynamics in heterogeneous landscapes, explored the effect of human movement among patches, and used data from cell phone towers to better understand social networks that potentially drive movement patterns. Their first paper, led by IGERT fellows Olivia Prosper and Nick Ruktanonchai and published in Journal of Theoretical Biology, showed that the regional R0, an epidemiologically important threshold, was bounded by the R0s of the isolated patches, and that relative rates of human movement determined which patch to target with control measures. Three other manuscripts are in preparation. The cohort’s activities culminated in their participation in a conference on malaria elimination from Hispaniola attended by representatives from Haiti, Dominican Republic, Clinton Foundation, Carter Center, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.