kristian Forbes, PHD
PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR

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 wildlife and the effects of anthropogenic environmental changes on these processes.

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

Reilly JacksoN, MS

PHD STUDENT 

Reilly Jackson earned her B.S in Wildlife and Fisheries Science with a concentration in Wildlife Management and a minor in Forestry in 2016 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She first started working with bats in Tennessee in 2013 and has since aided and conducted bat studies in Tennessee, California, Belize and Cambodia.  Her research interests include disease ecology and management, human-wildland interface in underdeveloped and developing countries, conservation biology, and tropical ecology. In July of 2019 she completed her Master of Science in Wildlife and Fisheries Science under the directive of Dr. Emma Willcox, where her thesis was titled “The effects of Pseudogymnoascus destructans on the hibernation and winter activity regimes of imperiled bats in Tennessee”. She is currently in the first year of her Ph.D in the Forbes Lab where she will be studying urban roost selection of bats that potentially pose disease risks, as well as niche modeling and movement ecology of disease reservoir species in Kenya.

Nathaniel Mull, MS

PHD STUDENT 

Nathaniel (Than) is broadly interested in population and community ecology of rodents. He previously received his Bachelor of Science in Biology, with a concentration in Organismal Biology/Ecology, from Kutztown University in 2015 and went on to earn his Master of Science in Biology from Northern Arizona University in May of 2019. Past research projects have included studying aspects of community structure based on habitat type; social, spatial, and acoustic behaviors; and expansion of distributional ranges. He is currently a first year PhD Student in the Forbes Lab and will be studying disease dynamics of rodents. Research will be conducted primarily in prairie habitats within Arkansas, with the goal of understanding the impacts of habitat degradation and restoration on rodent communities and their diseases. This research will therefore have further implications regarding management of natural habitats and its effect on human health.

JOSEPH OGOLA, DVM

PHD STUDENT

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. For his research, Joseph is investigating viruses in bats and rodents from three sites in Kenya - the Taita Hills, Kibera urban settlement in Nairobi, and Busia county in western Kenya. 

 

 

 

Undergraduate Students

Sydney Darling