People

Professor of Ecology with focus on rodent and disease ecology. Before joining University of Helsinki in 2022, I was a Senior Lecturer at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. My research centers on the drivers and consequences of population dynamics of mammals where I uses multi- and  interdisciplinary approaches that combine autecology with population, community and landscape ecology, behaviour ecology, epidemiology, virology and microbiology. I am also responsible for the National Monitoring of Small Mammals programme in Sweden.

I work as a project coordinator, mostly with the EU funded BEPREP project. My tasks involve project management, research support and administrational tasks related to e.g. reporting, finances, human resources and communication. My background is in ecology and evolutionary biology.

My current portfolio consists of the epidemiology of ticks and tick-borne diseases of the Sanje mangabey in Tanzania, modelling factors in chimpanzee nest selection in Cameroon to support forest protection schemes, and the uses of non-invasive survey techniques to study the Negros bleeding-heart Dove in the Philippines. In addition, I have a passion for statistical ecology particularly the use of hierarchical models, which were vital for my PhD project. My PhD focused on how land-use and host density influence disease risk and abundance of invasive rodent species in rural Madagascar. This work with Institut Pasteur de Madagascar (IPM) and Dr. Sandra Telfer (university of Aberdeen) and had a strong emphasis on inform rodent management strategies. Leading to my current focus at the university of Helsinki of how restoration of natural habitats and biodiversity can influence disease dynamics

My research interests lie at the intersection of wildlife conservation, disease ecology and public health. I am particularly motivated by multidisciplinary approaches to complex health challenges. My work has spanned the evaluation of vector control strategies against invasive mosquitoes, evidence synthesis for assessing the health and economic impacts of invasive species, and pathogen transmission in multi-host systems. Currently, I am investigating how ecosystem restoration and biodiversity recovery can alter zoonotic disease risk by disrupting the ecological conditions that facilitate infection, shedding, and cross-species transmission, with the overarching aim of strengthening the evidence base for integrating ecological restoration into public health strategies.

I am a biologist specializing in disease ecology, conservation biology, and ecosystem health. Currently my work focuses on rodent-borne diseases and how disease risk links to biodiversity. Previously, I held the Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship in Germany, and a research grant from re:wild. I have conducted research on pathogen dynamics in wild and domesticated mammals, as well as the ecology and viruses of bats in the southwestern Indian Ocean. I have contributed to conservation projects, supervised graduate students, have been reviewer for international journals, and presented work at major scientific conferences

I am a PhD researcher in the LUOVA (Wildlife Ecology) doctoral programme. My background is in clinical microbiology, but I got engulfed in the world of disease ecology when working on my master’s thesis. I find the intricacies of how host and vector species communities affect the transmission cycles of zoonotic pathogens utterly fascinating.

 For my PhD I am studying, how the recovery of biodiversity affects the prevalence of disease vectors (mosquitoes and ticks) and vector-borne pathogens. I am collecting data from two case study sites: natural and artificial beaver ecosystems in Sweden, and reforestation sites in Madagascar. My PhD is part of and funded by the EU Horizon Project BEPREP.