Cat Lippi, PhDDr. Lippi is a postdoctoral researcher with the Quantitative Disease Ecology and Conservation (QDEC) Lab Group at the University of Florida and VectorByte. Her work broadly focuses on systems of vector-borne disease transmission, with a special interest in spatial and social-ecological drivers of mosquitoes and associated pathogens. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at UF in 2007, and in 2013 she received her Master’s degree in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. She applied her research skills working for institutions including the Florida Museum of Natural History, Yale Peabody Museum, and Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience. Following the completion of a graduate certificate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of South Florida, she began specializing in public health and vector control, working with the Florida Department of Health and the Anastasia Mosquito Control District in St. Augustine, FL. After deciding to continue her education in public health, she pursued a PhD in Medical Geography, with a minor in Entomology, at UF. Her work largely focused on spatial and statistical modeling of dengue and other arboviral transmission systems in Ecuador and the Caribbean. She completed her dissertation in 2021, titled “Leveraging mosquito surveillance and epidemiological data to inform public health response: a spatial statistics framework for arbovirus management and vector control in Ecuador.”
Cat currently resides in Gainesville, FL. When not in the lab, she enjoys playing cello, watching monster movies, and just about any excuse to be outdoors, from cycling and skating to photography and birding. |
QDEC Lab Group |
"We work on ecology at the human interface, and its implications for disease, conservation, sustainability, and wildlife management. Our interdisciplinary work incorporates tools from medical geography, quantitative and applied ecology, and the social sciences. We use techniques from the lab to the field to the computer to the white board."
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The VectorByte initiative establishes a global open access data platform to study disease vectors. This will not only serve as a hub for biological trait and abundance data for human and non-human disease vectors, but will also provide analysis tools and training to a wide audience of researchers and practitioners.
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EPI at UF |
The Emerging Pathogens Institute was created in 2006 to provide a world-class research environment to facilitate interdisciplinary studies of emergence and control of human, animal and plant pathogens of concern to Florida, to the nation and to the world.
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