Dr.

María Eugenia Grillet

Member

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Biography

Dr. Grillet studied biology and ecology at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Venezuela) where she got a Ph.D. in Ecology (1993), and started to do research on tropical insect vector ecology and infectious diseases ecology since then. Currently, she is Full Professor and the principal Investigator of the Vector Biology Laboratory at the Tropical Zoology and Ecology Institute (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela) where her research focuses on understanding how pathogens  (parasite/viruses)–host-vector interactions shape short-and long-term epidemiological patterns of human parasitic diseases, and how entomological, parasitological and ecological factors drive the expression of the spatial and temporal dynamics of some tropical insec t- borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, chikungunya, Zika and filariasis. She works in the framework of the population ecology and landscape epidemiology disciplines by using a multidisciplinary  approach involving field- and laboratory-based studies as well as statistical/mathematical modeling.

Another focus of her research is to explaining and understanding how the ecology of the pre-adult stages of the insect vectors may play an important role in modulating  life-history traits (e.g., density, longevity, survival, vector competence) related  to the ability of adults to transmit parasites and viruses, and determining the observed epidemiological pattern. She is member from 2014 of the Academy of Physics, Mathematical and Natural Sciences of Venezuela and she has been Visiting Fulbright Scholar from Griffin Laboratory, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY, USA (August-November 2017), Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands (May 2017-July 2018), Laboratorio de Simúlidos y Onconcercosis (LSO), Instituto Oswaldo Cruz / Fundación Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (November 2015), and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), Currently is Member of External Expert Committee for New Technologies to Control Aedes sp. PAHO/WHO (Washington DC, USA), The Task Force for Global Health (Georgia, USA and Merck & CO, INC), and the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas (OEPA). The Carter Center Inc. – Global River Blindness Program (Guatemala, Guatemala).