Collaborations

My research often develops through sustained work with people who bring different field sites, datasets and expertise to the same question. Some examples include:

1. Freshwater eDNA in the Afrotropics — field studies and method development in Uganda.
2. Plant microbiomes across China — coordinated sampling across institutions and forest plots.
3. Global One Health working group — international synthesis of human, animal and environmental health.

Freshwater eDNA in the Afrotropics

Uganda · partners in Africa, Europe and North America · field study and method development

I co-lead a collaboration using environmental DNA to study and monitor freshwater ecosystems in Uganda. The team combines local field knowledge with molecular ecology, biodiversity science and quantitative analysis. My role has focused on the analysis and reporting workflow, including ways to turn sequence data into results that are useful for ecological monitoring.

Our first study examined freshwater bacterial diversity across a forest–non-forest gradient in the Afrotropics. This empirical work also provides a testing ground for the eDNA methods and software I am developing.

Read the eDNA study · See the broader eDNA project

Plant microbiomes across China

Long-term collaboration · multiple research institutions and forest plots in China

This collaboration grew from coordinated field sampling and metadata collection across a broad latitudinal gradient. Together, we assembled 1,453 leaf samples from 329 plant species, allowing us to ask how climate, geography and host plants shape leaf-associated bacterial communities at a scale that no single field site could address.

I helped conceive the core questions and worked across sampling, data integration and analysis. The collaboration has produced studies on the biogeography, community assembly and host specificity of plant-associated bacteria, and continues to support new questions about how plant microbiomes respond to environmental change.

Biogeography of phyllosphere bacteria · Host specificity of plant-associated bacteria

Global One Health working group

From a focused working group to a 12-author international study

This collaboration began with a small working group in Charleston in 2024. The initial question was straightforward but difficult to answer: can the connections among human, animal and environmental health be detected at a global scale? The group has since grown into an international collaboration spanning ecology, disease research, biogeography and environmental science.

Together, we assembled 19 years of data from 153 countries, including 14,318 human disease outbreaks, more than three million domestic animal disease events, and records of tree-cover loss, urban expansion and temperature anomalies. I led the data integration and Bayesian analysis, contributed to the study design and visualization, and co-wrote the first draft.

The resulting manuscript shows why the environmental part of One Health cannot be treated as background: environmental change was often more strongly associated with human outbreaks than animal disease burden, and these relationships differed among countries. The manuscript is currently in review.

Explore the One Health project