Alum update! Olivia Biasetti, previous undergraduate researcher in the lab (’24) is now pursuing a Master’s degree in the Hoverman Aquatic Community Ecology Lab at Purdue University where she is examining how per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) impact amphibian infectious disease dynamics, with a particular emphasis on both the timing of contaminant exposure and the presence of co-infecting parasites.
August 2025 – Ericka Griggs, PhD student in the lab, presented her collaborative work on malaria parasites of Bald Eagles at the 2025 American Ornithological Society’s meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.
May 2025 – Tick….Tick…Boom. Our lab’s tick pathogen work is featured in the recent UVM Magazine piece on ticks in Vermont including Carlos Amissah’s dissertation research and our lab’s collaborative tick and small mammal pathogen project.
April 2025 – Three undergraduates from the lab including Ruby Higgins, Sydney Collet-Callahan, and Emma Privett presented their independent research projects on waterfowl, turtle, and fish pathogens at the UVM Student Research Conference (Ruby pictured on the left, Sydney on the right).
April 2025 – Ellen presented at the 80th Annual Northeast Fish & Wildlife Conference on the collaborative work happening in the lab looking at tick-borne pathogens in Vermont small mammal species during the “Spread and Spillover of Wildlife Diseases” session.
March 2025 – Lauren Berkley, recently graduated master’s student in the lab, starts as the first ever APHL-CDC Laboratory Vector-borne and Zoonotic Disease Fellow. Through this fellowship, Lauren will be developing and implementing effective operational strategies for vector-borne and zoonotic disease testing at the Vermont Department of Health Laboratory. Her primary focus will be on rabies and eastern equine encephalitis (EEE).
March 2025 – Previous graduate student in the lab, Alyssa Neuhaus, MS, presented her master’s thesis work on malaria parasite prevalence and diversity in Common Loons across the southern edge of their breeding range as well as her work screening thousands of mosquitoes from Vermont for avian malaria parasites at the annual Northeast Loon Scientific Working Group Meeting (NELSWG).
February 2025 – Ericka Griggs, PhD candidate in the lab, published her master’s thesis work on heat shock proteins in Common Loons in the northeastern US in the journal Waterbirds with collaborators. Congratulations Ericka!
November 2024 – Seven of us from the lab attended the annual VT Common Loon necropsy session organized by Eric Hanson (Vermont Center for Ecostudies) and Bren Lundborg (Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences). Pictured from left to right are Carlos Amissah, Lauren Berkley, Bren Lundborg, Ericka Griggs, Sydney Collet-Monahan, and Ruby Higgins. Boat strikes, fishing tackle entanglement and ingestion, and MALARIA were among the causes of death suspected in the loons we necropsied.
September 17, 2024 – Ellen presented a talk as part of UVM’s Talks and Walks on UVM’s Wild Side Lecture Series on “Vermont Tick-borne Pathogen Ecology” at the ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain.
September 2024 – Ducks! Ruby Higgins, senior undergraduate researcher in the lab, is studying the vector-borne pathogens of Vermont duck and goose species. Through collaboration and field work this fall, Ruby has been able to increase the number of species in her study. Ruby is shown here holding a male Wood Duck.
Update December 2024: Ruby has been awarded TWO undergraduate research awards to fund her work including a UVM FOUR Mini-grant and a UVM College of Arts and Sciences APLE grant. Congratulations Ruby!
August 2024 – Carlos Amissah, PhD student in the lab studying tick-borne pathogen dynamics, was able to accompany Chris Gray, mammalogist with Vermont Family Forests, on the annual small mammal monitoring project and gain invaluable skills of mammal trapping and handling.
July 16, 2024 – Six of us from the lab (four of us pictured here including from left to right, Emma Privett, Ellen Martinsen, Carlos Amissah, and Brayden Hall, not pictured are Ericka Griggs and Lauren Berkley) attended the Vermont Disease Ecology meeting at Vermont State University. Five of us presented on research ranging from emerging fish parasites, tick-borne pathogen co-infections, emerging tick-borne pathogens of cervids, and blackfly transmitted parasites of Common Loons.
June 2024 – On the hunt for ticks. Despite it being a low tick abundance year in Vermont, graduate student Carlos Amissah (with the help of undergraduate Brayden Hall, also pictured here) have been scouring forest floors across Chittenden county for black-legged tick nymphs this summer. They are pictured wearing their permethrin treated field suits and gaiters.
May 2024, Undergraduate research student, Pia Carmen, was accepted into the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine DVM Early Acceptance Program! Although Pia is currently a second-year student, she has been accepted to Tufts for their vet program upon completion of her B.S. in Biological Sciences. Awesome work and dedication Pia!
May 2024 – Eagles! As part of an ongoing collaborative project, Ericka Griggs, PhD student, has been able to get blood samples from Bald Eagles (Ericka is shown here with a BIG eaglet). Ericka is conducting the first survey of vector-borne pathogens of this national symbol.
May 20, 2024 – Lauren successfully defended her master’s thesis and is now an official Master of Science! Lauren shared her research results on cervid vector-borne pathogens in the Northeast including many new discoveries. Picture here of Lauren presenting her research to highschool students (not her actual defense).
May 2024 – The three seniors in the lab, pictured from left to right, Anna Hinkel, Olivia Biasetti, and Joe Webb, all successfully completed and defended their senior theses on tick pathogen dynamics! Now graduated, all three are onto new and exciting adventures in animal sciences (Anna), graduate school for amphibian disease research (Olivia), and graduate school for medical science (Joe).
May 2024 – Lauren Berkley, MS student, received the Department of Biology Graduate Teaching Assistant of the year award! Congratulations Lauren!
May 2024 – Out with turtles (again). Ericka continues turtle field work with the Orienne Society and the Vermont River Conservancy to screen these hosts for enigmatic vector-borne pathogens.
April 2024 – Eight students from the lab presented their research at the 2024 UVM Student Research Conference. Pictured from left to right from the top to the bottom are Emma Privett, Lauren Berkley, Anna Hinkel, Ruby Higgins, Olivia Biasetti, Joe Webb, and Aidy Pinnell. We even had our own Wildlife Pathogens Lab special sessions during the conference. Many folks from across campus flocked to the posters during both sessions.
April 2024 – Four of us from the lab attended the Northeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (NEAFWA) Conference in Hyannis, MA. We all presented our research including graduate students Ericka Griggs (upper right corner) and Lauren Berkley (bottom pic) as well as recently graduated senior researcher Sam Cranston (middle pic).
March 2024 – Ericka Griggs, PhD student in the lab, presented her work on Leucocytozoon parasites, blood parasites vectored by blackflies, in Common Loons at the 2024 Northeast Loon Scientific Working Group (NELSWG) meeting.
December 2023 – Graduate student Lauren Berkley shares her skills in mammalogy and museum specimen preparation, as we learn to prepare small mammals for the UVM Natural History Museum and collect tissues from these small mammals for tick-borne pathogen screening.
October 2023 – Over the course of two weeks, we collected hundreds of black-legged ticks from various habitats across Chittenden County, Vermont. Shown here are PhD student Carlos Amissah and senior undergraduate student Olivia Biasetti. Shown on the right is prime black-legged tick habitat (beware)!
October 2023 – Through collaboration with UVM and state fish biologists, we have been able to sample Lake Champlain fish for an emerging fish pathogen, Heterosporis. These microsporidian parasites cause destruction of skeletal tissue and are visible by filleting, appearing as opaque areas. Accelerated Master’s Student, Emma Privett (featured in the top left panel), is studying these parasites for her thesis project.
October 2023 – Ericka Griggs, PhD student in the lab, was able to join biologists from the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) during their annual raptor banding on Block Island in Rhode Island. Ericka, funded by the William A. Burnham Memorial Fund through the Peregrine Fund, is studying the vector-borne pathogens of Peregrine Falcons and other northerly breeding falcon species.
September 2023 – Susan Perkins (now Dean of Science at CCNY) visits the lab as she is honored with the UVM Department of Biology’s accomplished graduate alumni award. How often do you get four color coordinated female parasitologists together in one picture?
August 2023 – Turtle time! Ericka Griggs, PhD student in the lab, has been venturing out to sample various turtle species in Vermont for vector-borne pathogens. So far she has found a high infection rate and a diversity of turtle pathogens. Stay tuned for more updates on this project!
July 2023 – Alyssa Neuhaus publishes her senior honor’s thesis on malaria parasite diversity and distribution across the breeding range of the steeply declining Saltmarsh Sparrow in Ornithological Applications. Link to manuscript here.
July 2023 – Both Ericka Griggs (PhD student) and Lauren Berkley (MS student) present their research at the 71st International Wildlife Disease Conference meeting in Athens, Georgia.
July 2023 – Field work with Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) loon biologists allowed for capture and banding of five week old Common Loon chicks. Blood samples taken from the chicks will allow for mercury analysis of these birds as well as for pathogen screening.
July 2023 – Graduate student Lauren Berkley successfully completed the UC Davis Rx One Health Field Institute course. There were 29 attendees from 10 different countries around the world. Pictured here is Lauren and her course mates receiving their certificates.
June 2023 – Common Loon rescue on Rescue Lake (really)! Graduate student Ericka Griggs participated in a rescue of an adult breeding female Common Loon entangled in fishing line on Rescue Lake, VT. Working alongside loon biologists from the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE), the loon was untangled, measured (with Ericka measuring the bill in the picture), banded, and successfully reunited with her young chick (the first Common Loon chick ever hatched on the lake). These snazzy new leg bands as seen in the picture will allow for future monitoring and study of this female loon. News story on the rescue featured in the Vermont Journal:http://vermontjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/The-Vermont-Journal-06-28-23.pdf_
May 2023 – Anna Hinkel, a rising senior researcher in the lab, received the UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Life Science Leadership Award for 2023. Anna will be screening American dog ticks collected from across the state (including from dog parks and doggie daycare centers) for a handful of dangerous tick-borne pathogens. Congratulations Anna!
April 2023 – Olivia Biasetti, rising senior researcher, received the UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Dedrick Award. This award will enable Olivia to study a variety of tick-borne pathogens of blacklegged (deer) ticks across agricultural landscapes in Vermont. Congratulations Olivia!
April 23, 2023 – All four research students in the lab including (from left to right) Matt Heilbronn (senior undergraduate), Sam Cranston (senior undergraduate), Lauren Berkley (MS student), and Ericka Griggs (PhD student) presented their research at the New England Natural History Conference in Burlington, Vermont. Everyone garnered interest in their work and Lauren won a student poster award!
April 19th, 2023- Matt Heilbronn and Sam Cranston share their senior research projects with the UVM community at the UVM Student Research Conference.
March 16&17, 2023 – Ericka Griggs (PhD student) and Ellen Martinsen attended the 33rd annual regional loon meeting (NELSWG) in person (!!) and present on their recent research into malaria in Common Loons as well as the malaria parasites and other Apicomplexan parasites of Common Loons in the Northeast. Collaborators from near and far attended the conference.
Fall 2022 – Lauren Berkley (MS student) has been busy collecting blood and tissue samples from white-tailed deer from across New England both through wide collaboration with state biologists and researchers as well as through her own hunter check station visits. Through a tremendous amount of work and organization, Lauren now has hundreds of deer samples from across the northeastern US to screen in the lab for tick-borne and mosquito-borne pathogens.
November 30, 2022 – Ellen presented collaborative work from the Common Loon malaria parasite and disease projects at the annual Atlantic Marine Bird Cooperative (AMBC) conference. Over 250 folks from Canada, the US, and countries in Europe attended the conference.
November 9, 2022 – Adult deer ticks are out in abundance. Our crew managed to collect 50 adult deer ticks in 50 minutes at 50 degrees Fahrenheit at UVM’s Centennial Woods Natural Area! We will keep everyone posted on the pathogens found in the ticks from this heavily used campus forest.
October 20, 2022 – PhD student Ericka Griggs receives a research grant from the American Eagle Foundation to investigate possible links between lead and mercury exposure and parasite infection risk of Bald Eagles across North America. For this project Ericka will be collaborating with scientists from the USGS and the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) to screen samples from hundreds of Bald Eagles. This will be the first in depth examination of the vector-borne parasites of the Bald Eagle.
September 22, 2022 – Ph.D. student Ericka Griggs receives a 2022 Blake-Nuttall Fund Award from the Nuttall Ornithological Club. This funding will enable Ericka to investigate possible relationships between mercury exposure and infectious disease risk in Common Loons, a species exposed to high levels of mercury in the environment as they are at the top of the food chain as piscivores (fish eaters) on freshwater lakes and ponds. As such, loons make ideal sentinel species for studying relationships between heavy metal exposure and risk of infection with novel pathogens.
September 13, 2022 – Undergraduate Matt Heilbronn’s research on pathogen spillover into and out of the introduced and invasive bird species the House Sparrow makes the press again. Shelburne Farms featured Matt’s project as the dairy barn at Shelburne Farms is one of Matt’s field sites.
September 12, 2022 – Melissa Hawkins, Curator of Mammals at the Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History, visits the lab and also presents a seminar for the Department of Biology. Melissa shared her work that focuses on the union of genomics, field work, and use of museum specimens to better understand biogeography and phylogeography of Borneo squirrels and Madagascar lemurs.
September 6, 2022 – Ellen presented her talk entitled, “Malaria Parasite Spillover at a North American Zoological Park,” at the fifth International Conference on Malaria and Related Haemosporidian Parasites of Wildlife Conference in Bielefeld, Germany.
September 1st, 2022 – We are excited to welcome PhD student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow Ericka Griggs to the lab. Ericka’s research involves the study of a diversity of vector-borne pathogens in northerly distributed avian species. Through broad collaboration, she is investigating possible relationships between exposure to environmental contaminants, co-infections with multiple parasites, and infectious disease risk in northerly distributed bird species as well as species of conservation concern.
August 16, 2022 – Senior undergraduate student Matt Heilbronn makes the COVER of the UVM website which now features his research on spillover of pathogens into and out of House Sparrows at barns in Vermont. Here Matt is shown taking a House Sparrow out of a mist net at UVM’s own dairy barn.
August 15th, 2022 – Karli Fletcher, visiting scientist and Tufts veterinary student, guided us all through the necropsy of Common Loons found dead on lakes and ponds in Vermont this summer. The majority of deaths were attributed to ingestion of or entanglement in fishing tackle. This necropsy session was organized through the Vermont Center for Ecostudies’ work on Common Loons in Vermont.
July 20, 2022. The whole lab attended the 6th annual Vermont Disease Ecology Conference. Graduate student Lauren Berkley and undergraduate Matt Heilbronn each presented a talk on their research projects.
June, 2022 – Tick collection is happening! We are finding many hotspots of various tick species in Vermont and collecting them to screen them in the lab for a handful of tick-borne pathogens. Undergraduate Sam Cranston is heading up these efforts. Stay tuned for more updates.
Update! This project is now FULLY funded! Hooray for public support of science and graduate student Lauren Berkley’s hard work at launching this project campaign. This project received an extra award from the Wildlife Disease Association for having such a large number of backers. Thank you everyone who contributed!
June 1, 2022 – The cervid pathogen project has launched for crowdsourcing as part of the Wildlife Disease Association’s Wildlife Health and Disease Challenge Grants. Learn more about the northerly expanding vector-borne pathogens that threaten deer, moose, and other cervids including those transmitted by the ever expanding and increasing black-legged (deer) tick. More information at: https://experiment.com/projects/have-cryptic-cervid-pathogens-moved-into-the-northeastern-us-while-we-weren-t-looking
Field work has begun! Warblers and other migrants are rolling in and our mist nets are rolling out. Mist netting and bird banding have started as has the sampling of Vermont’s wild birds for various vector-borne pathogens. This field work is part of an ongoing and long term study on the pathogens and health of birds.
May 6, 2022 – Undergraduate Sam Cranston was awarded the UVM Kay Summer Research Award AND a UVM Summer Internship to fund him through a summer and senior research project on the pathogens of Vermont ticks. Here Sam is happily collecting deer ticks from the field.
May 6, 2022 – Graduate student Lauren Berkley received the UVM John Wheeler Graduate Student Research and Development Award! These funds will be used to help Lauren study the cryptic pathogens of northeastern cervids including moose and white-tailed deer. Congratulations Lauren on your first research grant!
May 4, 2022 – Undergraduate Matt Heilbronn was awarded the UVM Summer Sustainability Summer Fellowship AND the UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences 2022 Dedrick Summer Research Award! These two awards will enable Matt to investigate pathogen spillover into and out of the introduced and invasive House Sparrow this summer and throughout his senior year. Way to go Matt!
May 1, 2022 – Graduate students Lauren Berkley and Alyssa Neuhaus each shared their research with the UVM community and public during UVM’s Thompson Zoological Collection’s Museum Day 2022. Over 220 folks attended the event.
April, 2022 – Our piece on malaria in Common Loons is now in print in Northern Woodlands Magazine.
March 28, 2022 – Alyssa Neuhaus successfully defended her master’s thesis entitled “Diversity and distribution of the malaria parasites (genus Plasmodium) of the Common Loon (Gavia immer) and of Vermont Mosquitoes.” Congratulations Master Alyssa!
March 17, 2022 – Both Alyssa Neuhaus and Ellen Martinsen presented their research at the annual Northeast Loon Study Working Group (NELSWG) meeting on their findings of malaria and malaria parasite dynamics in the Common Loon.
January 18th, 2022 – Lauren Berkley joins the lab as a master’s student with an enthusiasm and interest in One Health that can’t be beat. Lauren begins graduate school with collaborators lined up and on board and hundreds of samples procured for her project on pathogen spillover into and out of cervids of the northeastern US.
November, 2022 – The entire lab participated in a Common Loon necropsy session with collaborators on the loon malaria mortality project including folks from the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VINS) and the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE). Everyone got their turn to explore the insides of these amazing birds and look for signs of pathogen infection and possible reasons for death. Entanglement in fishing gear was the culprit killer in two of the loons necropsied.
August 4, 2021 – Graduate student Alyssa Neuhaus and Ellen Martinsen present at the Vermont Disease Ecology Meeting at Norwich University. Alyssa presented on the malaria parasites of threatened bird species and Ellen presented on malaria parasite spillover into naive wildlife taxa.
July 11, 2021 – Our Wildlife Disease Association Wildlife Disease Challenge grant was fully funded! Thank you to all who helped fund this project. So much important work is now possible due to contributions from loon lovers near and far. Link to our funding campaign here: https://experiment.com/projects/understanding-malaria-emergence-in-common-loons
June 23, 2021 – Ellen presents a talk on the emergence of malaria in Common Loons for the Loon Preservation Committee. The talk was recorded and uploaded to the LPC’s Youtube channel and can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOu6nlNMS5E
August 11, 2021 – Graduate student Alyssa Neuhaus gives her first ever talk at a professional meeting (the joint meeting of the American Ornithological Society and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists) and wins an honorable mention for her talk! Hundreds of students presented at this meeting. Hooray Alyssa!
May 20, 2021 – Collaborative work on the effects of host association and elevation on the blood parasite community of Catharus thrushes (led by Dr. Naima Starkloff) is finally out in print in Ecosphere! Full article access here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.3497
April 22, 2021 – Graduate student Alyssa Neuhaus receives an American Ornithological Society AND a UVM Wheeler graduate research award in support of her research on the malaria parasites of Common Loons!
Wildlife Pathogens Lab 