Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease

Fall 2019 Teaching Assistant duties included grading homework and tests, holding office hours, answering clarifying questions, and hosting a guest lecture.

Course Description

Infectious diseases remain among the leading causes of death worldwide, and this burden is disproportionately borne by children living in low- and middle-income countries. Thus the management of infectious disease remains a critical intellectual challenge in the 21st century. This course will develop and apply ecological and evolutionary theory to infectious microbes (and their hosts) via the detailed examination of a number of case studies. This will be accomplished by a combination of lectures, discussions, and readings drawn primarily from the primary literature.

Students will:

• Develop familiarity with the biology of infectious diseases via the detailed examination of a number of infectious diseases including malaria, HIV/AIDS, and influenza.
• Gain understanding of the fundamentals of current ecological and evolutionary theory as applied to infectious microbes and their hosts, with particular emphasis on epidemiology, population genetics, host/pathogen coevolution and zoonoses.
• Become comfortable accessing, interpreting and synthesizing the peer-reviewed scientific literature, which comprises the majority of assigned readings.