About Us

Dr. Lori Stevens of the Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, is the principal investigator on the Program, with Dr. Daniel Bentil of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Engineering and Mathematics serving as the co-principal investigator. Besides running this program, they collaborate on research in the field of host-parasite interactions. The Program dovetails with a number of the University's strategic goals, including providing students with rigorous and challenging experiential learning, recruiting students from diverse groups and developing cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and scholarship.

Dr. Stevens' research involves host-parasite interactions, and currently focuses on Chagas disease (a condition affecting the heart, colon and esophagus). She does field work in Bolivia, molecular genetics in her lab and analytical models.

Dr. Bentil's research focuses on biomathematics. He is currently working on physiology of heart muscle, lung and kidneys as well as ecological studies of invasive species and host-parasite interactions. His approach includes developing and analyzing models, biological interpretation f the results, model comparison with experimental data and model refinement in the context of specific biomedical problems.