Nohra E. Mateus-Pinilla

Nohra E. Mateus-Pinilla, DVM, PhD, MS, MBA, is Principal Veterinary Epidemiologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey and holds three concurrent professorial appointments at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Research Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Animal Sciences, and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pathobiology.

Education:

• DVM, PhD, MS, MBA — all with emphasis on Veterinary Epidemiology

Research Interests:
Dr. Mateus-Pinilla’s work sits at the intersection of veterinary epidemiology, One Health, and wildlife disease ecology. Her primary foci include:

• Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in cervids—especially white-tailed deer—including prion biology, genetic susceptibility, surveillance design, and the demographic impacts of infection on pregnancy and population dynamics.
• Tick-borne and multi-host zoonotic pathogens such as Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma, and emerging rickettsial agents, with emphasis on active surveillance, spatial risk modeling, and human behavioral dimensions of exposure among hunters, farmers, and veterinary professionals.
• Broader One Health themes that integrate wildlife, domestic animal, environmental, and human health—spanning waterbirds in the Great Lakes under climate change, lead toxicology in urban opossums, and the global genomics of haemosporidian parasites.

Publication Trends:
Across 2024–2025 alone, her >15 most recent papers reveal intensified efforts in three arenas: (1) refining CWD surveillance systems and estimating prevalence biases under low-testing regimes; (2) mapping and modeling tick distributions and pathogen carriage across Illinois and the contiguous United States; and (3) quantifying human–wildlife interfaces through cross-sectional surveys, knowledge-attitude-practice studies, and risk-communication strategies.

Scientific Awards & Recognition:
No specific named awards are listed in the provided text; however, her work is widely disseminated via open-access journals, extensive dataset releases, and cross-platform social-media engagement (e.g., Bluesky, X, Mendeley).

Grants, Students, & Teams:
While individual grant numbers and student names are not detailed, Mateus-Pinilla leads or co-leads large multi-disciplinary teams evidenced by 95+ research outputs and eight publicly archived datasets (2021–2025). These datasets, hosted by the University of Illinois, cover topics ranging from tick-surveillance education for public-health employees to pregnancy and CWD status in >15,000 female white-tailed deer across northern Illinois.

Laboratories & Affiliations:
She is affiliated with the Wildlife Veterinary Epidemiology Laboratory and conducts collaborative research through the Illinois Natural History Survey, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, and the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois.