Dr. Barbara A. Han is a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Her research focuses on the ecological and evolutionary processes that influence the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases. She applies machine learning, ecoinformatics, and mathematical modeling to predict potential animal hosts and vectors of human pathogens, and to quantify spillover risks.
Dr. Han’s background includes extensive international and domestic fieldwork investigating wildlife disease ecology. She completed consecutive postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Georgia funded by the National Science Foundation (ecological informatics) and the National Institutes of Health (machine learning). She has served in advisory roles for international and national organizations, including the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Wellcome Trust, and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She continues to lead teams that work at the leading edge of data science and ecological theory to inform disease surveillance and prevention.