Nice to meet you! My name is Mel.

Rice fields near Moramanga, Madagascar with blue skies and mountains in the background

My motivating questions:

What ecological, biological, and sociopolitical factors influence the likelihood of cross-species infectious disease transmission and how?
How and why does our relationship with food animals, like livestock and poultry, affect the risk of spillover?
How has anthropogenic activity — particularly land use change and urbanization — affected infectious disease dynamics?
How do we improve prediction, surveillance, and prevention of emerging infectious diseases?
How do we achieve all of the above while centering equity for the affected (and often most vulnerable) communities?

Hi! I’m Melody Xiao (she/they), and I am a PhD candidate in Ecology at Duke University in the Nunn Lab. I’m interested in infectious disease ecology, determinants of zoonotic disease transmission (aka “spillover”), the impact of anthropogenic change on disease dynamics, and improving pandemic prediction systems, all from a One Health context. My goal is to become a well-rounded public health practitioner capable of translating epidemiological and disease ecology principles across disease systems and geographies. More importantly, I am motivated by a core belief that all living things have a right to good health and safety, and I choose to center equity and empowerment in my work.

I graduated from Rice University in 2021, where I received a BA in Health Sciences. While there, I participated in research on microbial ecology in rainforests and tick-borne relapsing fever in the Americas. I also worked with Legacy Community Health to conduct social needs assessments for residents of Houston’s Fifth Ward, connect residents with community resources, and research social determinants of health in rural Texas. Afterwards, I earned my MHS in Epidemiology (Infectious Disease track) and a Certificate in Tropical Medicine from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2023. There, I was involved in research on the spatial distribution of STIs in Uganda, antibiotic tolerance and resistance mechanisms in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, long-term impact of the PCV vaccine on invasive pneumococcal disease (WHO), and effectiveness of case-area targeted interventions for cholera outbreaks in fragile settings in Nigeria (USAID). I am also a member of Cohort 8 of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars, a nationally competitive program for doctoral students who want to apply their research to improving health and reducing health inequities.

I am deeply grateful for the resources I have had to be able to study a subject I love, and for the people who have supported me to get here. I would love to connect with more disease ecologists and One Health enthusiasts; please reach out at melody.xiao@duke.edu.