Kyndall Braumuller

2021 EPID Doctoral Ambassador Information

Biographical Information:

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and call the southeast my home. My hobbies include spending time hiking or outdoors with my husband and our two dogs as much as possible. I earned each of my BS’s in Environmental Health Sciences and Entomology from the University of Georgia. Following these, I attended and earned my MS in Entomology, focusing on medical entomology from the University of Kentucky. I took a few years off after my MS, working at the Harris County Public Health Department in Houston, Texas in the Mosquito and Vector Control Division, where I conducted routine tick / tick-borne disease, kissing bug / Chagas disease, and mosquito / mosquito-borne disease surveillance. I chose USC for my PhD in Epidemiology because of its growing research in infectious diseases. I feel I have the opportunity to really enact change and help increase awareness and prevention of vector-borne diseases that are traditionally looked over in every-day public health.

Research Interests:

I am interested in vector-borne disease epidemiology and ecology: anything involving mosquitoes, ticks, and kissing bugs, collecting vectors, identification, pathogen testing, and identifying environmental risk factors associated with these diseases.

Dissertation:

My PhD dissertation will focus on Spotted Fever Group Rickettsioses in children from El Salvador from a cohort at high-risk for vector-borne diseases. Additionally, I will be looking into the distribution of tick-borne pathogen positive ticks in the country and utilizing GIS and modeling techniques to identify areas of risk.