The WIMANET team
Who we are
These are this COST action’s main leadership members:
Jenny Dunn | Action chair
Jenny is Chair of WIMANET, and her interests span a wide range of aspects of parasite diversity and ecology. Her study systems focus on infections by Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon and Lankesterella in wild birds in the UK and Africa. More information on her lab is available here.
Alfonso Marzal | Action vice chair
TBA
Tamara Emmenegger | Science communication coordinator
Since her PhD, Tamara studied avian malaria parasites and host-parasite interactions and she started co-curating the MalAvi database from 2021. Tamara is now working as a museum curator, but keeps collaborating with the wildlife malaria network as the Science Communications Co-ordinator of WIMANET.
Alexandra Corduneanu | Grant awarding coordinator
Alexandra is an assistant professor and teaches at the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Cluj-Napoca. She has been working on pathogens associated with bats and added valuable knowledge on epidemiology and transmission dynamics through fieldwork and molecular analyses. She is involved in WIMANET as Grant Award Coordinator.
Nayden Chakarov | Working group leader WG1
Nayden is an avid (and occasionally desperate) field biologist, keen on finding and understanding animals (mostly birds) whatever they do and wherever they go. This is a slippery slope, which leads him up trees, through diverse ecological interactions, into the blood and down to molecular genomics, metabolites and single-cell interactions. Digs particularly Leucocytozoon.
Melanie Duc | Working group leader WG2
Melanie finished her PhD in 2023 on the topic of exo-erythrocytic (tissue) stages of Haemoproteus (Apicomplexa, Haemosporida) parasites in wild infected birds. Continuing studying the life cycle of these parasites, she started leading the WG2 of WIMANET with Prof. Ravinder Sehgal.
Josue Martinez-de la Puente | Working group leader WG3
Josue studies the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission networks. Throughout his career, he has used a wide range of approaches combining the extensive monitoring of natural processes and experimental procedures in the wild and in the laboratory. He is leading WG3 on the study of vectors of wildlife malaria.
Swen Renner | Working group leader WG4
Since his PhD, Swen worked on bird-environmental interactions and how land use change is affecting bird communities. Since 2014 he studied effects of Haemosporidians within global change responses to wildlife malaria. Swen is senior researcher and curator for ornithology at the NHM Wien and lead of WG4 of WIMANET.
Kasun H. Bodawatta | Working group leader WG5
Kasun is an evolutionary and community ecologist, with main research interests in understanding the drivers of host-symbiont associations and microbial communities. His work mainly focuses on animal associated symbionts, such as gut and uropygial gland microbiomes and avian-haemosporidian interactions. He is leading WG5 on multi host-parasite communities. Also see his personal website.
Martina Ferraguti | Working group leader WG6
Martina explores ecological impacts on mosquito-borne diseases. In her postdocs (JdC and MSCA-IF), she delved into host-pathogen dynamics and developed epidemiological models for vector-borne diseases. Since 2023, she holds a Ramón y Cajal position at EBD-CSIC. In WIMANET, she leads WG6 - Coordinating & Implementing CBOs. Explore further on her webpage.