Current research and/or projects

Dr. Ludwig works with the Public Health Risk Sciences division from the Infectious Diseases Control and Prevention Branch.

Dr. Ludwig’s research focuses on identifying zoonotic disease and modelling environmental determinants of disease vectors that present a danger to public health. She specializes in modelling zoonotic vectors transmitted by insects; and works on West Nile virus and other diseases transmitted by mosquitos and ticks, notably as they relate to climate change.

Research and/or project statements

• Scientific leadership on multiple stakeholder research projects including:

  • Modeling the combined effect of Land-Use Changes and Climate Changes on mosquito and bird biodiversity in Eastern Ontario, West Nile virus strain characterization in Eastern Canada, and Blood meal analysis of West Nile virus vectors in southern Québec

• Scientific leadership in surveillance projects development, maintenance, data analysis and data reporting—these include:

  • scientific advisor for the provincial surveillance program for mosquito-borne diseases

  • scientific advisor for vector surveillance and modelling working group at national and international level

  • manager for data validation and analysis in the Canadian Surveillance Program for Anti-Microbial resistance

• Research collaboration with Canadian surveillance agencies, centres, and Federal Research groups.

• Epidemiological analysis and modelling, some examples include:

  • Modelling the geographical dispersion of Amblyomma americanum in North America according to climate changes.

  • Studying the combined effect of land use changes and climate changes on the risk of human exposure to mosquito borne diseases and mapping vulnerable human populations using remote sensing data.

  • A scoping review of mosquito determinants related to vector potential for some viruses transmitted in Canada

  • Relationship between mosquito infection and bird infection for West Nile virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus in Ottawa region

  • Characterizing the Canadian West Nile virus strains diversity using the Whole Genome sequencing approach