Nichola J. Hill

The paper introduces a discretized stochastic diffusion approach to model discrete and continuous trait evolution in phylogenetics, exploring multiple new models and their applications.

The paper investigates leptospirosis transmission among brown rats in Boston, finding high genetic structure and limited dispersal, with Leptospira clades linked to specific rat populations and a human case linked to rats.

The paper reports an outbreak of H5N1 in New England seals, linking it to a second wave of H5N1 in wild birds and identifying genetic differences between avian and mammalian infections.

This study shows that ferrets in a domestic setting with prolonged exposure to symptomatic COVID-19 humans did not contract SARS-CoV-2, suggesting host factors may limit natural infection.

The paper shows that reassortment, a reticulate evolutionary mechanism, is more common than mutational drift in influenza virus transmission between different host species, especially when host evolutionary distance increases.