Speakers:
Sean Birkel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor & Maine State Climatologist
Climate Change Institute & Cooperative Extension, University of Maine.
Susan Elias, Ph.D., Staff Scientist
MaineHealth Institute for Research, Lyme & Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory
About the speakers:
Sean Birkel is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine with a joint appointment to the Climate Change Institute and Cooperative Extension. He is also the Maine State Climatologist, a role in which he provides climate and weather information to Maine stakeholders to facilitate decision-making and planning. Birkel is currently serving on the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Maine Climate Council. His research interests include climate variability, climate modeling, historical climatology, and he is the developer of a widely used data visualization website, ClimateReanalyzer.org.
Susan Elias researches the abundance and distribution of vector ticks and mosquitoes in Maine in relation to climate, hosts, habitat, and human behavior. The goal is to better understand and control the tick and mosquito species that transmit pathogens to humans and cause diseases such as Lyme, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Powassan (deer tick) virus encephalitis, West Nile, and eastern equine virus encephalitis virus. Elias has served on the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Maine Climate Council since 2020.
About the seminar: The ways in which climate change can affect the spread of vector-borne disease is an important and complex issue in One Health. This seminar begins with an overview of Maine’s changing climate, highlighting key factors such as milder winters with reduced snow cover and more freeze-thaw, longer growing seasons with more heat accumulation, and more precipitation extremes. Then the focus will shift to how weather and climate affect the distribution of vector tick and mosquito species and implications for vector-borne disease.
The event is free but registration is required. Please use this registration link to sign up for the Zoom event.
