Dr. Joseph Mihaljevic is an Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University in sunny Flagstaff, AZ in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS), as well as an affiliate faculty with the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute (PMI). Dr. Mihaljevic is looking for highly motivated individuals to join his lab group to pursue a Ph.D. in the areas of epidemiology, wildlife disease ecology, and pathogen genomics.

SICCS offers students a cutting-edge education at the intersection of health and computing, with the opportunity to collaborate with faculty in the fields of ecological informatics, health informatics, bioinformatics, computer science, and engineering. The PMI has internationally renowned faculty in the fields of population health and pathogen genomics, with state-of-the-art molecular laboratory facilities and sequencing capabilities. Dr. Mihaljevic emphasizes a rigorous integration of epidemiological modeling, fieldwork, and lab work to understand the drivers of pathogen transmission in wildlife and human populations.

Examples of projects in Dr. Mihaljevic’s lab include:
• Building and testing epidemiological models to understand the drivers of Ranavirus transmission in amphibian and fish communities.
• Using models and experiments to inform biocontrol efforts of the Douglas-fir tussock moth in western North America.
• Developing genomic tools and bioinformatic pipelines to explore viral evolution in heterogeneous host communities.
• Combining mechanistic models and statistical computing to test the performance of models against real epidemiological data.

Successful students will have strong interests in wildlife disease ecology, conservation, public health, and/or computation. While students will be expected to expand their statistical and computer programming skill sets, those with a passion for fieldwork and interests in computing are encouraged to apply.

Graduate student benefits in SICCS include stipends (TA or RA), tuition waiver, health insurance, support for summer fieldwork in a variety of beautiful ecosystems, and winter in the peaks of sunny Flagstaff, AZ. Applications received early may be considered for a prestigious NAU Presidential Fellowship. Candidates should explore the SICCS website for information for prospective students (www.nau.edu/siccs). More information about the PMI can be found at (http://pmi.nau.edu).

Interested students should contact Dr. Mihaljevic directly (joseph.mihaljevic@nau.edu).