Energy and Resources Group Colloquium

Climate change has been deemed the greatest threat to global public health. And yet, there is a yawning research gap surrounding the impact that this anthropogenic phenomenon may have on health-relevant infrastructure and decision-making. In this talk, I present my dissertation work structured around a theoretical framework and four lead author papers that employ computational methods to interrogate the potential implications that one facet of environmental change - temperature - may have for designing and deploying vector-borne disease prevention, using Aedes aegyptimosquitoes as a case study. This research contributes to the model-based acceleration of adaptive public health policy as the planet continues to warm and new options for biocontrol are advanced. I ground considerations for one such innovation, gene drive technology, in the context of past field trials for genetic-based tools and discuss the utility of scientific software for advancing equity and efficiency in infectious disease management.

Speaker: Váleri Vásquez, Stanford University