Alumni Profiles

Amanda Waugh

Class of 2020

Amanda Waugh flagging ticks.
Action shot of me flagging for ticks (this how we collect them, it’s literally just a corduroy flag and we drag it through the grass/bushes.)

My environmental humanities studies helped me focus and redefine my interest in infectious disease, particularly disease ecology. I am pursuing a dual degree in microbiology and English (language, media, and communications) as well as a minor in the environmental humanities which all come together for me in the idea of One-Health: A public health ideology that human health, environmental health, and animal health are all inextricably related, and one of the ways this manifests is through infectious disease.

This summer, I took a position at Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Portland, Maine, working in their vector-borne disease lab. It was everything I could have hoped for! I worked with a partner on a One-Health focused project looking at where the tick-borne virus Powassan virus exists in nature. It’s a rare and weird virus that is not equally distributed in the environment, but exists in small hot-spots, making it difficult to isolate. I did field work, going out into the woods and collecting ticks from different environments (woods, fields, birds, chipmunks…), as well as lab work, isolating the RNA from said ticks and testing for Powassan. We hoped that we could identify the hotspots where it existed and analyze what environmental factors created this ideal niche for the viral propagation.

We found the virus concentrated in forest habitats with invasive plant species, which was really validating for me, personally, as I am so interested in and concerned with how our interactions with the environment contribute to the spread of disease. This experience reaffirmed my passion for disease ecology and pursuing a deeper understanding of how our relationship with the environment affects human, animal, and environmental health. Not to mention, Maine in the summer is probably one of the best places to be. I absolutely loved it.

Amanda Waugh picking ticks.
Then we pick them all off with tweezers to take back to the lab. Here’s my partner and I looking for some.
A boardwalk through the forest.
This is a picture near one of the hot-spots: forest with invasive plant species. See how overgrown it is? Our theory is that Japanese barberry creates a safe environment for the tick’s host species so it is consequently ideal for the spread of the virus.
An ornithologist holding a bird.
We also collaborated with an ornithologist who would regularly bird-band at our field site for population and migration monitoring and collected the ticks from the birds that he banded. We also tested those ticks for Powassan virus in order to get a better understand of animal reservoirs of the virus.
A person holding a chipmunk.
Similarly we did live-trapping of small mammals to try to see if any of them could be reservoirs for the virus (the animals were never harmed!)
Amanda Waugh in the lab.
Back in the lab we processed the ticks and did RNA extraction.
RNA testing.
And then we tested the RNA to see if any of it was Powassan virus RNA. Here’s an example of two positive hits (the brightest band on the top right is the positive control).
Casco Bay at sunset.
Just for fun, here is one of my favorite pictures of the sunset over Casco Bay.