Guha Dharmarajan is a veterinarian and disease ecologist, whose research focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of disease in natural populations. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Veterinary Science and Master’s degrees in Wildlife Science from the Madras Veterinary College, and his PhD in Wildlife Science from the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University. He carried out his postdoctoral research at Purdue and subsequently moved to the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Following his postdoctoral research, he worked as a Ramanujan Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata. Before joining Krea, Guha was an Assistant Research Scientist at the Savannah River Ecology Lab, The University of Georgia.

Guha’s research is primarily in the fields of disease ecology and ecosystem health. Specifically, he studies how human-mediated environmental perturbations – global climate change, habitat modification and environmental pollution – affect disease dynamics in human and wildlife populations, and in turn how such altered disease dynamics feedback on ecosystem health by impacting eco-evolutionary processes at the individual, population and community scales.

Guha loves to teach, and has taught students at four institutions in India and the US (IISER-Kolkata, Krea University, Purdue University and the University of Georgia). At Krea, he teaches Scientific Reasoning, Biostatistics, Ecology and Conservation Biology, and Global Change Biology.

In his free time, Guha enjoys listening to a wide diversity of music from Hindustani Classical to Jazz. He also loves to read a broad array of fiction and non-fiction, but his favourite genre is epic fantasy.

Disease Ecology and Ecosystem Health

• Guo J, Zhao R, Li K, Tan A, Wang L, Ling A, Zhang H, Dharmarajan G, Bi Y, Yang R (IN PRESS) Altitude adaptation: The unseen work of gut microbiota. hLife https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlife.2024.11.004
• Davis AJ, Dixon WC, Hill JE, Helton JL, Bernasconi DA, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC and Rhodes OE Jr., Dharmarajan G (IN PRESS) Raccoon density estimation from camera traps for rabies virus management. The Journal of Wildlife Management, e22701.
  https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22701
• Li Y et al. (2024) Landscape ecological consolidations determine zoonotic host diversity in human habitats. Nature Ecology and Evolution.
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02570-x
• Hill JE, Miller ML, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Dharmarajan G and Rhodes OE Jr. (2024) Influence of habitat and baiting strategy on oral rabies vaccine bait uptake by raccoons in the southeastern United States. Applied Animal Behavior Science 277, 106320
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106320
• Bernasconi DA, Miller ML, Gupta P, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Rhodes Jr OE and Dharmarajan G (2023) Raccoons (Procyon lotor) show higher Trypanosoma cruziinfection rates than opossums (Didelphis virginia) in the Southeast US. Journal of Wildlife Disease 
  https://doi.org/10.7589/JWD-D-22-00174
• Dixon WC, Hill JE, Chipman RB, Davis AJ, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Rhodes Jr OE and Dharmarajan G (2023) Interspecific oral rabies vaccine bait competition in the Southeast United States. Applied Animal Behaviour Science261, 105897 
  https://doi.org:10.1016/j.applanim.2023.105897
• Frederick JC, Thompson AT, Sharma P, Dharmarajan G, Ronai I, Pesapane R, Smith RC, Sundstrom KD, Tsao JI, Tuten HC, Yabsley MJ and Glenn TC (2023) Phylogeography of the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis) throughout the USA identifies candidate loci for differences in vectorial capacity. Molecular Ecology32, 3133-3149 
  https://doi.org:10.1111/mec.16921
• Helton JL, Hill JE, Bernasconi DA, Dixon WC, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Dharmarajan G and Rhodes Jr OE (2023) Assessment of habitat‐specific competition for oral rabies vaccine baits between raccoons and opossums. The Journal of Wildlife Management87, e22398 
  https://doi.org:10.1002/jwmg.22398
• Hill J.E., Bernasconi, D.A., Chipman, R.B. et al. Home range and resource selection of Virginia opossums in the rural southeastern United States. Mammal Research (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-023-00733-y
• Hill JE, Helton JL, Bernasconi DA, Dixon WC, Hamilton MT, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Dharmarajan G and Rhodes Jr OE (2023) Raccoon densities across four rural habitats in the Southeastern United States. The Journal of Wildlife Management87, e22480 
  https://doi.org:10.1002/jwmg.22480
• Hill JE, Helton JL, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Dharmarajan G and Rhodes Jr OE (2023) Spatial ecology of translocated raccoons. Scientific Reports13, 10447 
  https://doi.org:10.1038/s41598-023-37323-6
• Hill JE, Miller ML, Helton JL, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Dharmarajan G, Rhodes OE Jr. (2023) Raccoon spatial ecology in the rural southeastern United States. Plos One 18: e0293133
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293133
• Bernasconi DA, Dixon WC, Hamilton MT, Helton JL, Chipman RB, Gilbert AT, Beasley JC, Rhodes Jr OE and Dharmarajan G (2022) Influence of landscape attributes on Virginia opossum density. The Journal of Wildlife Management86: e22280 
  https://doi.org:10.1002/jwmg.22280
• Dharmarajan G, Li R, Chanda E, Dean KR, Dirzo R, Jakobsen KS, Khan I, Leirs H, Shi Z-L, Wolfe ND, Yang R and Stenseth NC (2022) The animal origin of major human infectious diseases: What can past epidemics teach us about preventing the next pandemic? Zoonoses2: 11 
  https://doi.org:10.15212/zoonoses-2021-0028

Scientific Reasoning

Biostatistics

Ecology and Conservation Biology

Global Change Biology