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Assistant Professor, Division of Biological Sciences
Wildlife Ecology
Like many children Dr. Vanessa Ezenwa grew up exploring the outdoors on long expeditions through backyards and surrounding wilderness areas. Equipped with a backpack, memories of scenes from National Geographic, and a wholehearted curiosity for the world she lived in, Vanessa spent many afternoons and evenings collecting butterflies and insects that captured her imagination. Years later, Vanessa entered Rice University as a pre-medical student, but after taking her first college-level biology class and learning about the ecology side of biology from professors who were visibly excited to be teaching about work within their specialties, and working in an animal behavior lab, Vanessa shifted her focus from pre-medical studies to animal behavior and ecology.
In graduate school at Princeton University Vanessa studied associations between animal behavior and disease. She focused her research and her dissertation on social behavior in ungulates and how these behaviors influence parasitism and risks of contracting infectious diseases. Following her graduate work Vanessa began to ask what had and had not been done in the field, which moved her to look at how diversity affects the transmission rate of West Nile virus as a postdoctoral associate at the United States Geological Survey. As a new faculty member at the University of Montana, Vanessa's work continues to evolve.
Currently, Dr. Ezenwa's research is encompasses four general topics:
- the role of host behavior and ecology in shaping parasite infection risk within and across species;
- interactions between micro- and macroparasites and the implications for host and parasite dynamics.
- the evolution of behavioral counter-adaptations to parasites; and
- effects of environmental changes on the dynamics of infectious diseases in wildlife.
Dr. Ezenwa arrived at the University of Montana in the fall of 2005 and is looking forward to continuing her research and delving into new avenues of research through her exploration of Montana. In addition to her research Vanessa is excited to start teaching. In the near future she will teach a graduate seminar on wildlife disease ecology and undergraduate courses on ecology and wildlife diseases. Dr. Ezenwa professes that "incorporating undergraduates into the lab and having them participate in research" is an important aspect of working and teaching at a university. When asked what motivates her, Vanessa explains that she maintains a positive outlook ("I remind myself that it is supposed to be fun!") as her work is fun and exciting and continuously evolving. She says, "I love to see something start at the very beginning and, after all of the design and research and analysis, see the results." Dr. Ezenwa admits that she does not always find what she is looking for, but she does always find something interesting. And her advice to graduate students? "You always do much better when you are doing something that you like."
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