Dr. Levy works at the interface of epidemiology, ecology and statistics to understand and control vector-borne and other infectious diseases. For the past 14 years he has focused his research on the control of urban Chagas disease transmission in Peru. His research team in Peru conducts epidemiological studies on Chagas disease as well as entomological and ecological research on disease vectors and reservoirs. In addition, his team uses quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate the factors that have led to the urbanization of a disease traditionally associated with rural poverty.

Dr. Levy's methodological interests include developing new Bayesian methods to retrace the history of epidemics and applying techniques from control theory to optimize interventions against infectious diseases. Recently Dr. Levy's lab has begun to work on the bed bug problem in Philadelphia, Chagas disease vectors in New Jersey, and the global decline in flying insects.

Dr. Laura H. Kahn is a physician and research scholar with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. A native of California, Dr. Kahn holds a B.S. degree in Nursing from UCLA, an M.D. from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, a Master’s degree in Public Health from Columbia University and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Princeton University.

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In April 2006, she published Confronting Zoonoses, Linking Human and Veterinary Medicine in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases. That publication helped launch the One Health Initiative (http://www.onehealthinitiative.com) which seeks to improve the health of all species by increasing communication and collaboration between human, animal, and environmental health specialists. In the past years she has had multiple publications that have progressed the One Health movement. 

Princeton University awarded her course, “Hogs, Bats, and Ebola: An Introduction to One Health policy,” with a 250th Anniversary Fund for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. She has received many awards including the highest honor for her work in One Health: the K.F. Meyer-James H. Steele Gold Head Cane Award.

For a full list of her accomplishments; https://chw.princeton.edu/people/laura-kahn

**Unfortunately Dr.Cole's wet lab has been canceled but look for an email for us in January to reschedule. Thank you for your interest!** 

Dr. Stephen Cole is a graduate of the PennVet Class of 2015.  Following graduation he completed a fellowship at PennVet in Clinical Microbiology and recently became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists.  His interests include antibiotic resistance in bacteria from companion animals and the use of antibiotics in veterinary medicine.  In his spare time Dr. Cole is an improvisational comedian with Comedy Sportz Philadelphia.

Dr. Buck is a licensed social worker who works with individuals in the veterinary field who are experiencing stress, overwhelm, anxiety and feelings of depression. She received training in Veterinary Social Work from the University of Tennessee – a program designed to support the human needs that arise in veterinary work.

Dr. Buck is also Professor at West Chester University where she is engaged in research on animal-assisted interventions for populations who have experienced trauma. Current research projects include equine-assisted psychotherapy for women and girls in the criminal justice system and animal-assisted activities for children on the autism spectrum.

Jenni Punt, VMD, PhD is an immunologist who has spent most of her career integrating research and teaching .  After completing her VMD/PhD at UPenn, and a post-doc at the NIH, she accepted a position as a Biology Professor at Haverford College where she spent eighteen years working with undergraduates to understand the molecular and cellular regulation of T cell and hematopoietic stem cell development.  An Associate Dean for Student Research at Columbia University’s School of Physicians and Surgeons from 2013-2015, she was the founding director of an MD/MSc dual degree program focused on medical scholarship and continued to investigator the regulation of hematopoiesis with students in the laboratory.  Tempted back to the School of Veterinary Medicine at UPenn (after an educational adventure teaching advanced biology in high school), she is now developing new educational programs as the Associate Dean of One Health and Professor in the Pathobiology Department.  Her research on immune cell regulation continues, and she works at Penn Vet with undergraduate and veterinary students to understand the role of IGF1, a growth factor that plays a role in determining dog size, in immune cell activity.

More info coming soon

Dr. Sollecito is Professor and Chair of Oral Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine and Professor of Oral Medicine in Otolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is also an Attending and Chief of Oral Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He is a Fellow in Hospital Dentistry and a Diplomate in Special Care Dentistry and Oral Medicine. He is a Section Editor of the Compendium Journal and served on the ADA Council of Scientific Affairs. He has authored numerous papers and chapters related to various topics in Oral Medicine.

Dr. Michael David, MD, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Director of the Skin and Soft Tissue Clinic at Penn. Before moving to Penn in 2017, for eight years he was on the faculty of the Department of Medicine of the University of Chicago. He has focused his research for more than a decade on the epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus infections. Dr. David has written extensively on the molecular and clinical epidemiology of MRSA infections in jails and households, as well as in medical settings. Dr. David is now working on projects in antimicrobial stewardship and infection control as part of the CDC Prevention EpiCenters Program site at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He also is studying host, environmental and microbial risk factors for recurrent S. aureus infections in an NIH-funded study. Using data from whole-genome sequencing of bacterial genomes, he is examining the intra-host evolution of S. aureus during recurrent infections and asymptomatic colonization in patients at high risk of infections. The goal of this project is to define the impact on colonizing S. aureus isolates of antibiotic exposures and also the evolutionary trajectory of S. aureus on the human body that predicts persistence of colonization, clinically significant infections, and loss of colonization. With this information, physicians may be able to define high-risk patients who would benefit from interventions to prevent S. aureus infections.

An Assistant Professor in Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with joint appointment to the Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The goals of her One Health research are to reduce microbe-mediated diseases in humans and animals, and to combat the rise of bacterial antimicrobial resistance on local and global scales. She has been actively involved in methods development for One Health studies. Prior to her current position, she worked in companion- and food-animal general practice as an Associate Veterinarian. She received her D.V.M. from the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 2000, and her M.P.H. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

Dr. Julie C. Ellis, an ecologist, started working at PennVet in September 2018. Her PhD research at Brown University focused on marine birds and their effects on biological communities on islands and coastal shores in the Gulf of Maine. Julie joined the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in 2006 to manage the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network (SEANET), a citizen science program that brings together researchers and the public to identify and mitigate threats to marine birds. Upon investigating a die-off of common eiders (a type of sea duck) on Cape Cod, her efforts led to a collaborative project across 24 different organizations, which contributed to the discovery of a novel virus that affects these ducks. The eider project inspired a regional program to coordinate wildlife disease surveillance in the region, the Northeast Wildlife Disease Cooperative (NWDC). The NWDC, established in 2013, provides diagnostic services, expertise, training, and research support to state and federal agencies that manage wildlife populations in the Northeast. At PennVet, Julie continues to administer the NWDC, and with Dr. Murphy, is co-directing the PA Wildlife Futures Program.