PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR

kristian Forbes, MPH, PHD

Kristian is a disease ecologist and eco-immunologist. After completing Bachelor and Master degrees in his native Australia, Kristian moved to Finland for his PhD studies, where he stayed on as a postdoc while also spending time in Kenya, South Africa and the US. He has diverse interests in population and disease ecology, with a particular focus on the maintenance and transmission of zoonotic pathogens in bats and rodents and the effects of anthropogenic environmental changes on these processes.

Contact 
Office Phone: (479) 575-3797
EmaiL: kmforbes@uark.edu

staff AND POSTDOCS

SARAh chewning
LAB MANAGER

​chewning@uark.edu

​Sarah is the lead cat wrangler! She earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and Master of Science in Animal Genetics at the University of Arkansas. She loves collaborating with international researchers in diverse disciplines. Her primary motivators are learning, seeing researchers thrive in their niche, and project-oriented problem solving.

Dr Tamika lunn
​postdoc

tjlunn@uark.edu

Tamika is a wildlife disease ecologist with an interest in the dynamics and drivers of infectious diseases, particularly in bats. She enjoys multi-disciplinary and collaborative research to tackle big questions in this field. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Forbes Lab she is studying bat-ebolavirus ecology in East Africa. Give her coffee and she will do Science. ​

Dr Brent newman
postdoc

bcnewman@uark.edu

Brent is interested in wildlife and zoonotic disease ecology, invasion epidemiology, and ticks and tick-borne diseases. His research in the Forbes lab focuses on habitat and parasite coinfection as drivers of heterogeneity in wildlife infectious diseases processes using the bank vole-Puumala hantavirus system in Finland.

graduate Students

Reilly
​ JacksoN

rtj006@uark.edu

Reilly's research interests include disease ecology and management, human-wildland interface in underdeveloped and developing countries, conservation biology, and tropical ecology. For her PhD, she is studying building roost selection of bats that potentially pose disease risks, as well as movement ecology and human-bat conflict of disease reservoir species in Kenya.

Nathaniel
​Mull

ngmull@uark.edu

Nathaniel (Than) is broadly interested in population and community ecology of rodents. His PhD thesis is focused on disease dynamics of rodents, primarily in prairie habitats within Arkansas, with the goal of understanding the impacts of habitat degradation and restoration on rodent communities and their viral infection dynamics.

JOSEPH OGOLA
DVM

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Joseph is a veterinarian and PhD student enrolled at the University of Nairobi. He is co-supervised by Kristian. Joseph works as a county vet in western Kenya, but his interest in emerging infectious diseases led him to pursue a PhD. Joseph is investigating viruses in bats and rodents from three sites in Kenya - the Taita Hills, Kibera urban settlement, and Busia county. 

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katherine wearing

-- coming soon --

isabella deanglis

-- coming soon --

Undergraduate Students

Abigail stolt
undergrad technician

isabella stark
​unDergrad/honors student

ALUMNI

C. Houston Lamb (undergrad/honors student)
Sydney Darling (undergrad/honors student)
Aaron Norris (undergrad/honors student)
Alexia Hernandez (undergrad technician)
Amy Schexnayder (undergrad/honors student)
Mary Claire Walker (undergrad/honors student)