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Assistant Professor of Medicine

Division of Infectious Diseases

Natalie Bowman is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her AB in Chemistry from Harvard College, followed by an MPhil in Biochemistry at Cambridge University, UK, where she worked in Professor Peter Leadlay’s lab studying the biosynthesis of polyketide antibiotics such as erythromycin. She then attended medical school at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. During medical school, she studied the epidemiology of Chagas disease in periurban neighborhoods of Arequipa, Peru as a Fogarty/Ellison fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Gilman (Johns Hopkins), with whom she maintains a productive collaboration. Their work characterized the epidemiology of the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and its insect vector Triatoma infestans and described early signs of cardiac or autonomic dysfunction in infected children. After graduating from medical school in 2007, Dr. Bowman completed her residency in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital then returned to her home state for fellowship in infectious diseases at UNC. During fellowship she obtained an MPH in Epidemiology and performed research on the epidemiology of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Africa under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Meshnick and Dr. Jonathan Juliano.

Dr. Bowman’s research focuses on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of neglected tropical diseases and emerging infections, especially those that are prevalent in the Americas. She has ongoing studies throughout Latin America with study sites in Nicaragua, Peru, and Bolivia investigating HIV and neurological opportunistic infections such as Chagas disease, toxoplasmosis, and tuberculosis; congenital Chagas disease and Chagas cardiomyopathy; insect vector (ticks, mosquitoes, and triatomines) biology and epidemiology; and the epidemiology, transmission, and prevention of Zika virus. Additionally, she has been active in UNC’s clinical and research response to the COVID-19 pandemic, heading up three cohort studies: COFF-NC, a study of COVID-19 in farm and food processing workers; OBS-C, a study and biobank from SARS-CoV-2 infected patients for 12 months after infection; and RVTN, a study of the effect of vaccination on household transmission of COVID and flu.