Cedar is a MSPH/PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the epidemiology of non-falciparum malaria in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, horizontal transmission of Hepatitis B among households in the DRC, and the protective efficacy of permethrin treated clothing against tick bites among park rangers in Rhode Island.
Prior to UNC, Cedar received her B.S. in Microbiology from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ where she studied transmission patterns of human plague infections in Madagascar in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar. Following graduation, she spent 2 years as a post-baccalaureate with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, MT where she examined mechanisms of flea-borne transmission of plague among wildlife. From her entomology work, Cedar developed a mathematical model to help explain sudden plague outbreaks among prairie dog colonies throughout the Western US.
Through her MSPH/PhD work at IDEEL, Cedar aims to apply her experiences investigating plague to better understanding transmission patterns of other vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, and disease prevention and control strategies.
