People | Fountain-Jones Lab

Principal Investigator

Dr. Nick Fountain-Jones

Dr. Nick Fountain-Jones is a lecturer in public health with a focus on evolutionary disease ecology and One Health. He integrates methods in epidemiology, ecology, and genomics to understand how pathogens emerge and evolve, and how these processes affect wildlife, livestock, and human health.

Nick’s research spans a variety of species and ecosystems, often with a goal of informing evidence-based conservation and health management strategies. Through cross-disciplinary collaborations, he has contributed to a deeper understanding of disease transmission and evolution in a changing world.

Current Roles & Interests

Evolutionary One Health research
Pathogen genomics and phylogenetics
Epidemiological modeling
Wildlife-livestock-human interface

Learn More

For more details on Dr. Fountain-Jones’ background, current grants, and teaching activities, visit the University of Tasmania profile .

Current Graduate Students

Talia Brav-Cubitt

Talia is a PhD student studying wildlife pathogen transmission using genomic and epigenetic data, with study systems including Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease, and viruses in seabirds in the Southern Ocean. Talia is from Auckland, New Zealand and previously worked as a research technician in the Ecological Genetics Lab at Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. She has broad interests in using molecular tools to answer questions in conservation biology and disease ecology.

Laura Patier

Laura is a PhD student studying pathogens in wildlife, focusing on Antarctic marine predators and Australian seabirds systems. Her research looks at viromes and microbiomes using new-generation sequencing methods. Laura is from France and comes from a marine ecology background, previously investigating mercury contamination in seabirds. She’s interested in the use of molecular tools and metagenomics to deepen our understanding of disease ecology in wildlife.

Eva Baukes

Eva is an Honours student investigating mosquito distributions in Northeastern Tasmania, focusing on Culex annulirostris, a key vector of the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). Her research integrates molecular genetics, taxonomic identification, and virome analysis to assess species composition and arbovirus presence. Eva completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in Zoology at UTAS and has broad interests in disease ecology, vector-borne diseases, and the application of molecular tools in conservation biology and public health. Her work contributes to One Health initiatives by improving understanding of vector distributions and informing evidence-based health policies.

Tengyi Mai

Tengyi is a PhD student doing spatiotemporal modelling of transmissible cancers of Tasmanian devils, especially on the ecological, epidemiological, and evolutionary interaction between Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD) and Devil Facial Tumor 2 (DFT2). Tengyi comes from a statistics and economics background and has years of working experience as a data scientist with Python and machine learning. He is keen to apply mathematical modelling skills to the research of epidemiology and ecology.