Sonia Altizer

Key takeaways

Sonia Altizer belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sonia Altizer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sonia Altizer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sonia M. Altizer (born 1970) is an American ecologist and professor at the University of Georgia Department of Entomology. Her research includes work on animal migration, infectious disease dynamics, parasite transmission, urbanization, climate change, and butterflies. Altizer is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At the University of Georgia, she is a Distinguished Research Professor and Department Head of Entomology.

Early life and education Altizer was born as the daughter of Jim and Chris Altizer of Watkinsville, Georgia. She grew up in York, Pennsylvania. Her passion for biology and the natural world began when she received a gift of a microscope and a grow-your-own-butterflies kit on her twelfth birthday. Altizer received a B.S. from Duke University in 1992 and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1998. She also did a postdoctoral work at Princeton University and Cornell University.

Career and research

For 20 years since a graduate student of the University of Minnesota, Altizer traveled the world to study monarch butterfly migration, ecology, and interactions with a protozoan parasite. She has researched how seasonal migration of these butterflies affects parasite transmission, and also developed collaborative databases of mammalian infectious diseases, on host behavior, ecology, and life history interact with global-scale patterns of parasitism. She also focused her research on songbird-pathogen dynamics, including studies of house finch conjunctivitis, West Nile virus, and salmonellosis. Altizer has published several publications and she recently co-edited a book that would be published in 2015, titled Monarchs in a Changing World: Biology and Conservation of an Iconic Insect. She also and participated in high-level task forces dedicated to monarch butterfly conservation. A citizen science project called Monarch Health is run by her students at University of Georgia, which is now the eighth year. There are hundreds of volunteers across North America in sampling wild monarchs for a debilitating disease. Altizer held a number of administrative positions in the Odum School of Ecology, including Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (2012-2017), Academic Coordinator (2017-2019), Promotion and Tenure Chair (2020), and Associate Dean for Research and Operations (2020-2021). Most recently, she served as Interim Dean for the Odum School (2021-2023).

Research areas Altizer's research interests are ecology of infectious diseases in natural populations, evolution of host resistance and parasite virulence, insect ecology and evolution, animal migrations, and anthropogenic change and infectious disease dynamics.

Honors and awards Odum School of Ecology Award for Teaching Excellence (2008) University of Georgia Award for Teaching Excellence (2008) Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2008) Odum School of Ecology Faculty Instructor of the Year Award (2012) UGA Athletic Association Professor of Ecology (2014) Lothar Tresp Outstanding Honors Professor (2016) Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award (2018) Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020) Fellow, Ecological Society of America (2024)

Personal life Altizer rides horses and has two children.

Selected publications Rushmore J, Caillaud D, Hall RJ, Stumpf RM, Meyers LA, Altizer S (2014). "Network-based vaccination improves prospects for disease control in wild chimpanzees". Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 11 (97) 20140349. Bibcode:2014JRSI...1140349R. doi:10.1098/rsif.2014.0349. PMC 4208366. PMID 24872503. Altizer S, Ostfeld RS, Harvell CD, Johnson PT, Kutz S (2013). "Climate change and infectious disease: from evidence to a predictive framework". Science. 341 (6145): 514–519. Bibcode:2013Sci...341..514A. doi:10.1126/science.1239401. PMID 23908230. Rushmore J, Caillaud D, Matamba L, Stumpf RM, Borgatti SP, Altizer S (2013). "Social network analysis of wild chimpanzees with insights for infectious disease risk". Journal of Animal Ecology. 82 (5): 976–986. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12088. PMID 23734782. Streicker DG, Recuenco S, Valderrama W, Gomez-Benavides J, Vargas I, Pacheco V, Condori RE, Montgomery J, Rupprecht CE, Rohani P, Altizer S (2012). "Ecological and anthropogenic drivers of rabies exposure in vampire bats: implications for transmission and control". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1742): 3384–3392. Bibcode:2012PBioS.279.3384S. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0538. PMC 3396893. PMID 22696521. Altizer S, Han B, Bartel R (2011). "Animal migrations and infectious disease risk". Science. 331 (6015): 296–302. Bibcode:2011Sci...331..296A. doi:10.1126/science.1194694. PMID 21252339. Altizer S, Davis AK (2010). "Populations of monarch butterflies with different migratory behaviors show divergence in wing morphology". Evolution. 64 (4): 1018–1028. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.00946.x. PMID 20067519. DeRoode JC, Altizer S (2010). "Host-parasite genetic interactions and virulence-transmission relationships in natural populations of monarch butterflies". Evolution. 64 (2): 502–514. Bibcode:2010Evolu..64..502D. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00845.x. PMID 19796153. Harvell CD, Altizer S, Cattadori I, Harrington L, Weil E (2009). "Climate change and wildlife diseases: when does the host matter the most?". Ecology. 90 (4): 912–920. Bibcode:2009Ecol...90..912H. doi:10.1890/08-0616.1. PMID 19449685. De Roode JC, Yates AJ, Altizer S (2008). "Virulence-transmission trade-offs and population divergence in virulence in a naturally-occurring butterfly parasite". PNAS. 105 (21): 7489–7494. Bibcode:2008PNAS..105.7489D. doi:10.1073/pnas.0710909105. PMC 2396697. PMID 18492806. Bradley CA, Gibbs SE, Altizer S (2008). "Urban land use predicts West Nile virus exposure in songbirds". Ecological Applications. 18 (5): 1083–1092. Bibcode:2008EcoAp..18.1083B. doi:10.1890/07-0822.1. PMID 18686573.

References

External links Infectious Disease Ecology in the Altizer Lab Archived July 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Sonia Altizer publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sonia Altizer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sonia Altizer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sonia Altizer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sonia Altizer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sonia Altizer

In research: Sonia Altizer appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sonia Altizer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sonia Altizer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970 births, 20th-century American biologists, 20th-century American women biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sonia Altizer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Sonia Altizer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sonia Altizer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Sonia Altizer in simple terms?

Sonia M. Altizer (born 1970) is an American ecologist and professor at the University of Georgia Department of Entomology.

Why does Sonia Altizer matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sonia Altizer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sonia Altizer.