Congratulations to Professor Shweta Bansal for her recognition as a Distinguished Investigator!
The Distinguished Investigator Recognition honors faculty each year who have excelled in sponsored research activity. This year, Professor Bansal was among the 26 professors honored. In 2014, our own Professor Joseph Neale was also recognized.
Professor Bansal’s research involves mathematical disease ecology models. Her lab group focuses on the interactions that occur between hosts for the transmission of infection. These interactions are often difficult to observe, and yet they are key drivers in both the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of infectious disease. The Bansal lab uses both bottom-up approaches (including contact/behavioral data collection, transmission experiments, and mechanistic models) and top-down approaches (including epidemiological data and statistical models) to get at important host interactions and the role they play in dynamics for a variety of human, wildlife and livestock disease systems. Learn more about her research here.
Professor Neale, who was recognized for his research in 2014, investigates the neurobiology of pain perception and schizophrenia. His group has pioneered research over the past two decades that has demonstrated that N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) is the third most prevalent transmitter in the nervous system. They have made significant progress in the development of novel drug therapies for inflammatory pain and schizophrenia in animal models. Learn more about their work here.
To learn more about the Distinguished Investigator Award and see the list of Georgetown Professors honored, click here.