Leadership

Michael Lauzardo, MD, MSc, is an associate professor within the division of infectious diseases and global medicine. Also serving as the director of the CDC funded Southeastern National Tuberculosis Center (SNTC) at the University of Florida, he has been involved in public health, teaching and patient care within the College of Medicine since 1997. Trained as an internist and pulmonologist, throughout his career he has been involved in the clinical care of patients with tuberculosis. He has also played a key role with the Florida Department of Health, serving as the Deputy TB Controller for the Florida TB Program and is currently the director of the Florida TB Physicians Network. Previously, he was the chief of the division of infectious diseases and global medicine. His clinical practice and research centers around tuberculosis among at-risk populations and he is involved in various international health activities.

Dr. Maureen Long is a 1986 graduate of the Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine’s D.V.M. program. Upon graduation, Dr. Long was a private equine practitioner. In 1993, Dr. Long completed a combined residency/MS program in Large Animal Internal Medicine at the University of Illinois in which she identified Neorickettsia risticii is an abortifacient in horses. Dr. Long completed a combined residency/Phd program at Washington State University in 1998; the focus of her work was Neospora caninum. Dr. Long started as a clinician at UF 1999 in Large Animal Clinical Sciences. Dr. Long has taught in over 30 professional and graduate courses and is highly published in peer reviewed journals and is Co-Editor of the book, Equine Infectious Diseases. At UF, the focus of her research and clinical specialty has been emerging infectious diseases. Her work has included equine encephalitides, particularly West Nile virus. She has studied the comparative efficacy of equine WNV vaccines and investigated the pathological responses of Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis as the Fern Audette Endowed Chair in Equine Studies. In recent years she has been a faculty member of Comparative Diagnostic and Population Medicine and a member of the Emerging Pathogens Institute. Her work has evolved to a One Health focus investigating human arboviruses such as Dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya viruses as well as SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responses in humans and SARS-CoV-2 infections in animals. Currently she is the Associate Director of Shared Research Resources at the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute.

Shantrel Canidate, Ph.D., MPH, a social and behavioral epidemiologist and health equity researcher, joins the institute’s leadership team as the EPI Associate Director for Outreach and Community Partnerships. This role is dedicated to nurturing the internal relationships between multiple UF units, identifying opportunities for external partnerships and fostering research collaboration with Southeastern universities.

Canidate is an assistant professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions Department of Epidemiology. In addition, she serves as a faculty member within the social and behavioral science program and the Southern HIV and Alcohol Research Consortium. Her research focuses on applying interdisciplinary approaches to identifying, understanding and addressing substance use and HIV-related health disparities among marginalized populations, such as men who have sex with men (MSM). Her work also aims to leverage electronic health records data through artificial intelligence and utilize causal inference approaches to identify biomedical and behavioral interventions that can reduce racial disparities in HIV care among marginalized populations.

As a double gator, Canidate received both her master’s in public health and a doctorate in public health from UF, specializing in social and behavioral sciences. She later completed a two-year T32 postdoctoral fellowship in the department of epidemiology with the UF Substance Abuse Training Center in Public Health. She is currently funded as a principal investigator through the first-ever Health Equity Scholars for Action grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and through a five-year K01 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Furthermore, she is also funded as a co-investigator by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse.

Dr. Daniel Swale is an Associate Professor in the Emerging Pathogens Institute and Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of Florida. Dr. Swale received his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Christopher Newport University (2008), his M.S. in Life Sciences from Virginia Tech (2009), and his Ph.D. in insect neurotoxicology from the University of Florida (2012). He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt Medical School focusing on the development of pharmacology for potassium ion channels involved in various human diseases. At EPI, his current research lies at the interface of physiology, toxicology, and molecular genetics to provide knowledge on the modes of action, discovery and development, and resistance of various drug and insecticide chemistries. Our lab studies the fundamental and applied aspects of physiology and toxicology by integrating toxicological, pharmacological, electrophysiological, and genomic approaches to address broad ranging hypotheses in model insects, arthropod vectors of human diseases, and agriculture pests. Specifically, the Swale Lab studies the physiotoxicology of ion channels and ion transporters that are understudied as a means to bridge the fundamental knowledge gap that limits our understanding of insect systems. In addition to fundamental physiotoxicology, a branch of the Swale Research Lab focuses on pathogen-vector interactions that alter physiological pathways to enhance pathogenesis of pathogens, alter arthropod behavior, or alter vector competency.

In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, hunting, and triathlons.

Dr. Glenn Morris assumed the position of Director of the Emerging Pathogen Institute in August 2007. In addition to his position as EPI Director, Dr. Morris is a professor of infectious diseases in the UF College of Medicine. Morris has worked in public health and pathogen related fields for more than 40 years, and has had a continuing fascination with emerging pathogens. At EPI, Morris has helped to shape the creative vision behind a web of campus-wide projects to anticipate, understand and control the emergence of new, disease-causing microorganisms. Morris started his public health career at the Centers for Disease Control where he was an epidemic intelligence service officer and focused his attention upon cholera and other water- and food-borne illnesses. Before coming to the University of Florida, he was Chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore.