Heather Mead, Ph.D.

Dr. Mead is a Research Assistant Professor with the Immunology Core, part of TGen’s Immunology and Microbial Genomics Division. Her research focuses on the adaptive immune response to pathogens. Her long-term goal is to apply her knowledge of pathogenic host evasion and human immunity in innovative ways to develop improved surveillance techniques, diagnostics, and treatments for infectious diseases. She is particularly interested in Valley fever, a fungal infection endemic to the Southwestern United states.

Heather is a graduate of Northern Arizona University, from whence she received her B.S. in Microbiology and later earned her Ph.D. in Biology while studying Coccidioides genetics. Currently, her projects involve leveraging highly-multiplexed genomic assays to characterize T and B cell responses to human-infecting viruses, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Coccidioides, and Plasmodium species.