Angela Toepp graduated with her MS in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 and later pursued a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Iowa College of Public Health, which she obtained in 2018. Angela’s master’s thesis research on African sleeping sickness (trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense) has increased her interest in infectious diseases and the impact these diseases have on both humans and animals.  Angela hopes to use her knowledge of microbiology, epidemiology, and statistics to study and model the way infectious diseases move through a population.  Currently in the Petersen Lab, Angela is determining the prevalence and incidence rates of leishmaniasis in U.S. hunting hounds, examining how comorbid infections (ie: tick borne diseases) impact the transmission of Leishmania, and modeling the basic reproductive number of leishmaniasis in U.S. hunting hounds where vertical transmission is the main route of transmission compared to other countries where both vertical and vector transmission occur concurrently.