Andrew Park


Professor
Graduate Program Faculty
Joint appointment: Dept. of Infectious Diseases, College of Veterinary Medicine

Professional Website

Education

Ph.D. – Cambridge University, UK

Honors, Awards, and Achievements
  • Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award (Recognition by UGA of outstanding accomplishment and evidence of potential future success in scholarship, creative work or research by an early career faculty member in any discipline – up to one scholar per year) – 2014
  • John M. Bowen award for excellence in biomedical research (UGA award for developing an extramurally funded research program) – 2011
  • UGA Lilly Fellowship (One of 10 tenure-track faculty selected into 2-year program for excellence in instruction) – 2011
  • President’s Venture Fund UGA – Computational Ecology Workshops – 2010
Affiliations

Dr. Park has a joint appointment in the Odum School of Ecology and the Department of Infectious Diseases, College of Veterinary Medicine.

  • Ecological Society of America
  • Society for the Study of Evolution
Research Interests

Research Interests

  • Emerging infectious diseases
  • Ecology and evolution of host-parasite systems
  • Mathematical and computer modeling of natural systems

Research Projects

  • Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and parasite fitness (including clarifying theory on the dilution effect)
  • Explaining and predicting transmission of coral pathogens in endangered marine ecosystems
  • Characterizing parasite generalism, host-species jumping and host-parasite ‘missing links’ using macroecology techniques
  • Studying the role of host personalities in influencing parasite transmission among networks of hosts (with the Ezenwa Lab at UGA)
  • Establishing the different ways in which vector diversity impacts vector-borne diseases
  • Exploring the consequences of refugia on the emergence of drug resistance
  • Determining the potential for early warning signals in time series of infectious diseases, with a focus on childhood infections (AERO)
Selected Publications

Characterizing the phylogenetic specialism–generalism spectrum of mammal parasites. Park, A., W.; Farrell, M., J.; Schmidt, J., P.; Huang, S.; Dallas, T., A.; Pappalardo, P.; Drake, J., M.; Stephens, P., R.; Poulin, R.; Nunn, C., L.; and Davies, T., J. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285(1874): 20172613. 2018.

The description and number of undiscovered mammal species. Fisher, M., A.; Vinson, J., E.; Gittleman, J., L.; and Drake, J., M. Ecology and Evolution. 2018.

Anticipating epidemic transitions with imperfect data. Brett, T., S.; O’Dea, E., B.; Marty, É.; Miller, P., B.; Park, A., W.; Drake, J., M.; and Rohani, P. PLOS Computational Biology, 14(6): e1006204. 6 2018.

Estimating the distance to an epidemic threshold. O’Dea, E., B.; Park, A., W.; and Drake, J., M. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 15(143): 20180034. 6 2018.