Peter Hudson, PhD is the Willaman Professor of Biology and the Director of Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, where he focuses on the ecology of wildlife diseases, including zoonoses. His group uses a mixture of fieldwork, laboratory studies and mathematical modeling to explore disease dynamics in three main study areas. Epidemiology and population dynamics

• How disease flows through wild animal populations
• Mechanisms that lead to disease persistence within populations
• The consequences of individual infections on host population dynamics. For instance, how the sub-lethal effects of infection destabilize host population dynamics by influencing the fecundity of individuals.

Heterogeneities

• Identifying variation in transmission between infected individuals — and the role of "superspreaders" in disease dynamics.

Parasite interactions

• How infection by one disease agent alters host susceptibility to other parasites and pathogens.
• The consequences of these interactions for host population dynamics.

Much of Peter's work has implications for the control of wildlife diseases, and of emerging zoonotic disease.