Juliette Lewis

My name is Juliette Lewis, I am a PhD student in Tony Schountz's lab. I completed my bachelor's degree in microbiology at Colorado State University in Fall of 2018, and started in the graduate program in Fall of 2019. I am studying henipaviruses using the Jamaican fruit bat as an animal model. My work seeks to elucidate how bats can serve as apathogenic reservoirs for Nipah virus and Hendra virus, which both cause severe disease and high mortality in humans. I am also studying the role of henipavirus nonstructural proteins in host interferon antagonism. In light of the recent outbreak, I have begun working on SARS-CoV-2 (previously nCoV-2019) to understand the relationship between this virus and bats. When I'm not in the lab, I enjoy hiking in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with my husband and two dogs, rock climbing, doing yoga, and hanging out at the many microbreweries in Fort Collins.