Christine Kreuder Johnson
University of California – Davis, CA, USA
Christine Kreuder Johnson, VMD, MPVM, PhD, is a Professor of Epidemiology and Ecosystem Health and Director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute, University of California, Davis. She has a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of California, Davis (2003) and VMD degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania (1994). Her work is committed to transdisciplinary research to characterize impacts of environmental change on animal and human health, inform preparedness for emerging threats, and guide public policy at the intersection of emerging disease and environmental health. Professor Johnson’s research has pioneered new approaches to characterization of emerging threats and disease dynamics at the animal-human interface in rapidly changing landscapes that constitute “fault lines” for disease emergence, disease spillover and subsequent spread. Her activities also serve pressing research needs at the boundaries of science and policy, such as investigations into early indicators of unusual morbidity and mortality in wildlife, impacts of land use and climate change on disease in populations, and conservation and public health implications of harmful algal blooms and land-to-sea movement of pathogens in coastal systems.
She leads the “EpiCenter for Emerging Infectious Disease Intelligence”, one of NIAID’s Centers for Emerging Infectious Disease (CREID) to investigate the environment and climate-related drivers for spillover and spread of emerging ebolaviruses, coronaviruses, and arboviruses. Previous work for the National Academies of Medicine were at request of the Vital Directions Steering Committee to coauthor a paper “Infectious Disease Threats: A Rebound to Resilience” for the National Academies Vital Directions policy initiative.