My research on rodents focusses on ecologically-based rodent management, particularly understanding the impact of invasive pest species on human livelihoods and health as well as their detrimental impacts within small mammal communities, zoonosis spillover and developing ecologically sustainable management practices.
Human activities such as deforestation, urbanization and agricultural expansion are changing rodent communities, increasing interactions between sylvatic and commensal species and increasing the risk of disease spillover. Fevers of unknown origin are increasingly reported across Africa, where investigations are showing that many of these cases can be attributed rodent-borne infections. My current research activities are investigating the impact of rodent control on disease prevalence, particularly for plague, leptospirosis and typhus.
