Rafael Felipe Da Costa Vieira

Biography:

Rafael Vieira, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of *One Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences and CIPHER at UNC Charlotte. He completed his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE, 2005), Veterinary Residency in Laboratory Diagnostics at São Paulo State University (UNESP, 2008), Masters at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR, 2009), and his Ph.D. at Londrina State University (UEL, 2012), Brazil.

For 12 years, Vieira acted as an Associate Professor of Zoonotic and Vector-Borne Diseases and One Health at two Federal Universities in Brazil. During that time, he worked closely with some Brazilian State Health Departments in a task force to evaluate the ecology and taxonomy of ticks of public health importance.

Vieira is the PI of several research training capacity-building projects in Brazil, Somalia, and The Gambia, and he is engaged in research and teaching focused on the One Health approach, particularly involving ticks and tick-borne diseases. Over the last 12 years, his research has focused on zoonotic diseases, with an emphasis on the epidemiology of vector-borne and transboundary infectious diseases, One Health, molecular detection and characterization of novel hemotropic Mycoplasma and tick-borne pathogen species, and evaluation and validation of diagnostic tests for zoonotic infectious diseases.

In the last several years, Vieira’s research group has described eight novel bacteria species, three directly involved with ticks and five unknown species of hemoplasmas. Vieira is currently investigating the zoonotic potential of those bacteria.

Vieira has graduated nine Ph.D. and 25 master’s students and trained five veterinary residents and various undergraduate students on One Health, taxonomy of ticks and molecular diagnostics. His research summary includes more than 110 peer-reviewed publications, which have received more than 1,900 citations so far.

His professional goal is to apply his background to approach global health issues at the human-animal-environment interface from a One Health perspective, with a special focus on vector-borne, particularly those transmitted by ticks, and zoonotic diseases.

Highest Degree:

Ph.D.

Highest Degree Institution:

Londrina State University, Brazil

College/Organization:

College of Health and Human Services