معرفی
Anna-Sofie Stensgaard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding vector-borne disease distributions and dynamics in a changing climate, with particular emphasis on the intersection between environmental change and disease ecology.
As a vector and disease ecologist, Dr. Stensgaard's research aims at unraveling local to global scale drivers of vector-borne disease distributions and dynamics. Her work focuses on quantifying the effect of climate change versus other environmental drivers to make the best possible predictions about future disease spread and trends. Her research group employs a multidisciplinary approach combining field-collected and lab-based experimentally derived data with statistical and mathematical modeling to understand how anthropogenic changes such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and habitat disruption influence the distribution, dynamics and interactions between vectors, pathogens, hosts and reservoir species.
Her recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on climate change impacts on parasitic and vector-borne diseases, with particular attention to schistosomiasis, trematode infections, dengue fever, and Fasciola species. She has increasingly incorporated environmental DNA techniques into parasitology research and has developed modeling approaches for disease prediction and early warning systems. Her work spans multiple continents with significant research activities in Africa, Europe, and Denmark.
Dr. Stensgaard leads the EU Horizon 2020 project PREPARE4VBD (www.prepare4vbd.eu) and maintains an active research group called 'Parasites, Vectors and the Environment.' She has published 49 research outputs and contributed to 6 media engagements, demonstrating her commitment to both academic research and public science communication. Her work on climate-driven 'species-on-the-move' has been particularly impactful for public engagement with climate change issues.
Her research addresses mosquito-, tick-, and snail-borne diseases such as Rift Valley fever, West Nile virus, TBE, and fascioliasis, with applications for improving model-based predictions and enhancing preparedness for emerging vector-borne and parasitic diseases of humans and animals. She advocates for integrating climate change education into both medical and veterinary curricula, reflecting her commitment to the One Health approach that connects human, animal, and environmental health.
