Avery Holmes

Welcome!

My research interests primarily focus on virus diversity and fundamental patterns in virus ecology, focusing primarily on wildlife viruses. Some of my past work focused on whether the geographic spread of diverse viruses in vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) was limited by the host’s ecology, or whether some viruses could escape these constraints, likely through differences in infection biology. And it looks like they can – read the paper here!

Currently I’m working on my PhD as part of the Wellcome Trust Integrative Infection Biology programme at the University of Glasgow, supervised by Daniel Streicker, Max Farrell, and Christina Faust. My project focuses on virus diversity in wildlife and whether species with certain intrinsic traits, such as body size, lifespan, or diet support more virus diversity, and whether these patterns are affected by the changing environment. I’m excited to be collaborating with the Helmholtz Institute for One Health in Greifswald, Germany, as part of this project.

As my career has developed, I have been increasingly interested in mathematical modelling in ecology and disease research. I’m currently strengthening my modelling skills with a side project estimating the incidence (cases per 100,000 people per year) of acute brucellosis in a pastoralist community in northern Tanzania, supervised by Jo Halliday and Mafalda Viana. Our models focus on accurately quantifying our level of uncertainty in the incidence estimate and examining where that uncertainty comes from. This has been a great project, and I hope to share the published paper with you very soon!

If you’re interested in what I’m doing, send me an email or come find me at one of my upcoming conference presentations!