Professor Aksoy is a tropical medicine researcher whose work focuses on the epidemiology of insect transmitted (vector borne) and zoonotic diseases.  Her research has been on tsetse flies and the pathogenic parasites they transmit that cause highly neglected and fatal diseases of humans in Africa, known as Sleeping Sickness. Her laboratory focuses on deciphering the vector-parasite molecular dialogue and parasite development during the transmission process with the ultimate goal of identifying novel targets of interference and developing transmission blocking vaccines to reduce disease.  Her fundamental and interdisciplinary work on tsetse and its microbial symbionts has identified key principles that shape host-microbe interactions. Her studies with tsetse's mutualistic microbes identified nutritional contributions that facilitate female fecundity and mediate host immune system development. Her studies with tsetse's commensal microbiota led to a novel biological method, coined as paratransgenesis, in which anti-parasitic molecules are synthesized in the beneficial gut microbes, thus making the gut environment inhospitable for disease causing parasites. Ability to spread such modified microbes into natural insect populations is being explored to reduce disease transmission as a novel biological method.Dr. Aksoy maintains collaborative research activities with Yale researchers as well as with multiple universities and research institutes in Africa. Their studies in Kenya and Uganda investigate the epidemiology of Sleeping Sickness disease, with a focus on understanding the major drivers that sustain disease transmission, as well as on population genetics of flies and parasites and their microbiota. She initiated and led a large international consortium that eventually sequenced the genome of six tsetse fly species. This effort vastly expanded molecular knowledge and genomic resources on this neglected disease vector, and collectively expanded research capacity in bioinformatics and functional biology in many laboratories in sub-Sahara Africa. As the co-editor in Chief of the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases between 2007-2020, she has been a major voice for building research and publication capacity for global neglected tropical diseases.  Throughout her professional career, Aksoy has been an advocate of and innovator in Global Health; served as a dedicated mentor to students and scientists in the US and in Africa, China, Italy and Turkey helping to prepare the next generation of leaders in the fields of epidemiology and zoonotic disease control.

Michael Cappello MD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, and Professor of Pediatrics and Microbial Pathogenesis at Yale Medical School. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in Biomedical Ethics and received his MD from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. After training in adult and Pediatric infectious diseases at Yale, Dr. Cappello joined the faculty in 1995, where he oversees a laboratory and field based research program focused on global health, tropical medicine and molecular parasitology. He is a 2007 recipient of the Bailey K. Ashford medal, awarded by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene “for distinguished work in tropical medicine.” In addition to research, Dr. Cappello provides clinical care as an Infectious Diseases specialist at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. He is co-founder of the Yale Partnerships for Global Health, an initiative that advances scientific knowledge, promotes international understanding, and builds human capacity through collaborative research and training. From 2007-15, Dr. Cappello directed the Yale World Fellows Program, a multi-disciplinary, campus-wide initiative whose mission is to cultivate and inspire a global network of leaders committed to positive change. From 2016-21, he chaired the Council on African Studies at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and was faculty director of the Yale Africa Initiative. Dr. Cappello is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Academic Advisory Council of Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Caroline H. Johnson, PhD, is a Tenured Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. She graduated from Imperial College London in 2009 with a PhD in Analytical Chemistry. Since then she has held postdoctoral and staff appointments at the National Cancer Institute and The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Johnson's research uses mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to understand the role of metabolites in human health. Her primary research interest is to investigate the relationship between genetic and environmental influences (diet, hormones and microbiome) in colon cancer. She is also examining exposures during pregnancy.

Dr. Ransome’s research investigates how social, economic, and cultural determinants influence racial/ethnic- and geography-related disparities in HIV care continuum indicators and alcohol use disorders. Two broad determinants of interest are a) social capital & cohesion, and b) religion, faith, and spirituality. Dr. Ransome currently has a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to study the direct association and underlying mechanisms between social capital and cohesion on HIV care continuum outcomes in the United States. Some methodological approaches Dr. Ransome uses in his research program include survey data analysis, multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling, spatial epidemiology, and geographic information systems.