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I am a PhD student in Olivia Wesula Lwande lab. My interest in infectious diseases stems from my work with wildlife and the understanding that wild animals play a critical role as reservoirs and transmission links for human infections. For instance, several arboviruses, especially mosquito-borne (mobovirus) such as West Nile virus (WNV), Usutu virus (USUV), and Sindbis virus (SINV), are bird-borne, making birds key agents in arbovirus maintenance and cross-border transmission.

I obtained my BSc. in Biological Sciences and my MSc. in Conservation Biology. In addition, I received training in Veterinary Public Health, and volunteered with the War Against Rabies Foundation in Nigeria, among other roles. After my MSc., I worked as a research assistant for four years investigating tick-borne viruses in wild birds in a collaborative project with Olivia Lwande, Martin Angelin (Umeå University), Jonas Waldenström (Linnaeus University), Ulf Ottosson and A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, Jos Nigeria. This project enabled me to gain key laboratory and molecular biology experience.

In line with my previous experience, my PhD research focuses on the role of wild birds and arthropod vectors in the maintenance and transmission of arboviruses (both tick and mosquito-borne) such as USUV, WNV, SINV, and Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) at the human–avian–vector interface in West Africa. I combine ecological sampling with virological, molecular and bioinformatics techniques to detect, isolate and characterize viruses, determine their genetic diversity, phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships to understand virus movement, and describe the virome profiles of both vectors and hosts. Additionally, I envision performing blood meal analyses of vectors using mitochondrial barcoding to determine vertebrate host diversity, history and preference, to assess pathogen exposure in birds and the spillover risks to humans.