Madeline Yunker

Madeline is a first year PhD student. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary, Alberta in Cellular, Molecular and Microbial Biology. Her honors research was on understanding differences in HIV quasi-species populations between the central nervous system and peripheral blood samples in a family transmission cluster. After graduating, she spent a year working at Agnico Eagle's Hope Bay Gold Mine in the Canadian arctic as a pandemic counselor conducting COVID-19 diagnostic testing, positive case management and public health outreach. She then completed her Masters of Science degree in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her thesis research with Dr. Heba Mostafa was conducting surveillance via next generation sequencing for circulating influenza and RSV viruses and trying to understand the relationship between genetic changes and disease severity within the Johns Hopkins Hospital System.

At CSU she is interested in studying how environmental factors influence the spill over of emerging viruses and how scientists can improve communication to better inform and protect communities most at risk.