In Pursuit of Prevention

Speaker

Melissa Prusinski is a Senior Research Scientist, Laboratory Supervisor and Deputy Director of the Vector Surveillance Unit with the New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, in Albany, NY. Over the past 25 years, her research interests have focused primarily on the epidemiology, vector biology and landscape ecology of diseases transmitted by ticks, mosquitoes, and other arthropods. She serves as Chief Coordinator of the NYSDOH Statewide Tick-borne Pathogen Surveillance Initiative and was head of the former NYSDOH Tick Identification Service from 2001-2011. Her research efforts have recently helped to document Heartland and Bourbon viruses for the first time in NYS ticks, describe the emergence and spread of anaplasmosis, babesiosis, hard tick relapsing fever and Powassan virus in Upstate NY, determine white-tailed deer seroprevalence to a variety of mosquito-borne viruses, and to investigate a familial cluster of sylvatic typhus cases associated with flying squirrels.

Cornell IPM Academic Seminars

This event is part of the Cornell Integrated Pest Management academic seminar series which is designed to increase awareness of new research and techniques that advance Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and its adoption in all types of pest management settings.