Achievement

Trainee in Mathematics, Rebecca Borchering, began working with Dr. Juliet Pulliam, a Professor in the Biology Department, this past year on infectious disease modeling. Rebecca developed spatially explicit epidemic simulations to describe disease spread resulting from contact between susceptible and infected individuals. Their work focused on H7N7 avian influenza A, using data from the 2003 outbreak of the influenza on poultry farms in the Netherlands. Their model evaluated the rate of exposure of humans to infected poultry and the cumulative risk of exposure for farm employees.