Johanna Harvey

Gerstner Postdoctoral Fellow

Johanna completed her Ph.D. in 2018 from Texas A&M University, where she worked with Dr. Gary Voelker. She is broadly interested in parasite and host evolution across geographic and environmental gradients. Her dissertation disentangles patterns of diversification and distribution of malaria parasites in birds across the African continent. By examining the influence of climatic data (e.g. rainfall, temperature, etc.) along with the diverse suite of transmitting vectors, she hopes to better understand the distributional patterns of avian malaria parasites across contrasting bioregions. She then did a post-doc in Dr. Sarah Knutie’s lab at the University of Connecticut. During her post-doc, she explored the effects of urbanization on reproductive success of Darwin's finches in the Galapagos and created a successful method for extracting RNA from bird blood. During her post-doc at AMNH she plans to examine the effects of climate change on avian malaria distributions and virulence while also examining the effects on avian host immune response. Her favorite pastimes include birding, spending time outdoors, watching Netflix, and spending as much time as possible with her family, including her two cats, Chewie and Lucy.