Brian Byrd, PhD

bdbyrd@email.wcu.edu

Dr. Brian Byrd is a Professor and Program Director in the Environmental Health Sciences program, College of Health and Human Sciences, Western Carolina University. He received a Bachelor’s degree (Biology) from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, a Master’s of Science in Public Health Parasitology, and his Doctorate (PhD) from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana. During his studies at Tulane, he was a pre‐doctoral fellow in a CDC funded training program in vector‐borne infectious diseases. He has completed additional graduate training in field epidemiology at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Currently, Dr. Byrd teaches undergraduate courses such as Medical Entomology, Principles of Epidemiology, Public Health, and other Environmental Health Science courses. His research focuses on native and invasive domestic mosquitoes and mosquito‐borne diseases, with a regional focus on La Crosse encephalitis. He also maintains an active undergraduate research program where his students have been nationally recognized. He has authored or co‐authored peer reviewed manuscripts in discipline related journals.  http://mosquito.wcu.edu