Meredith Spivak, a Doctor of Philosophy in Public and Population Health Leadership student, recently published a literature review: “Advancing One Health surveillance with non-invasive biomonitoring: a review of persistent pesticide exposure assessment using external keratinized animal tissue.” This article was Spivak’s first publication listed as the lead author.
As an avid researcher, Spivak hopes this will set the stage for future research endeavors.
“This is a very important milestone in my career,” Spivak said. “Not only did I learn so much about how to lead research from start to finish, but it was really exciting to see my own ideas transform from questions to research to publication.”
The article summarizes current literature on biomonitoring persistent pesticides non-invasively in animal keratinized tissues, like fur and feathers. Although a variety of persistent pesticides are banned in many countries, the chemicals don’t breakdown easily — meaning they remain present in our environment and present risk to humans, animals, and entire ecosystems.
“Biomonitoring data from animals can help us understand our shared exposures and risks,” Spivak said. “We found that the use of feathers from apex predators can offer important information on exposures and is a promising tool for One Health surveillance.”
The One Health approach recognizes that the health of people, animals, plants and the shared environment are all interconnected. This framework, Spivak said, can help researchers like herself better understand how persistent environmental pesticides in the environment can impact human, animal and ecosystem health.
Although this is Spivak’s first time as the lead author on a paper, she is no stranger to publishing and being highly involved in research within the School of Public and Population Health. Every published paper is a “group endeavor,” Spivak says and learning how to coordinate research efforts from the beginning of the project to final submission is both challenging and rewarding.
“I have worked with different professors at SPPH, and this has been so important for me because they each bring a different set of research skills and a unique perspective that I can learn from,” Spivak said. “Being able to work on papers and complete research in a collaborative fashion has prepared me to take the next step to first authorship.”