Area of Research

• Dr. Bird is an Associate Director of the One Health Institute of the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis. He is a veterinarian, rancher, and a virologist with expertise in viral hemorrhagic fever molecular pathogenesis, virus ecology, vaccines, and outbreak control and diagnostics. His laboratory has active research programs in California, Sierra Leone, DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania that involve both the animal and human health sectors to understand the factors underlying virus spillover from bats and rodents to people and to develop novel countermeasures ranging from vaccines to community-based risk mitigation efforts to stop outbreaks at their source. He is an inventor of novel vaccines currently under development for Rift Valley fever virus to protect both people and animals from this devastating mosquito-borne disease found across Africa and parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Dr. Bird is also serves as the focal point lead for One Health on the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network Research group (WHO GOARN-R).