Sarah Volkman
Past Core Course:
- Senegal Case Study Leader
Malaria: Breaking the Cycle:
- Challenges and Tools in Changing Epidemiological Settings
- Country Application: Lessons Learned and Implications of Scale-up to Elimination in Zambia
Dynamics of Malaria Transmission:
- Challenges and Tools Required in Changing Epidemiological Settings
Dr Sarah Volkman is a molecular biologist with almost 30 years of experience in malaria biology and expertise in parasite genetics and mechanisms of drug resistance in malaria. Her primary research interests center on understanding genetic variation in Plasmodium falciparum and employing population genetic strategies to identify genetic loci that relate to changes in transmission dynamics and mapping patterns of infection. She also investigates the genetic contribution to drug resistance in this organism. She currently working to develop tools that leverage the population genetic diversity of P. falciparum to both identify genetic variants that contribute to biologically and clinically relevant phenotypes, and to define and track changes in parasite population structure to help guide intervention use and stratification.
In addition to her role as a principal research scientist in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Disease at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Dr Volkman is a member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a professor at the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Simmons College. She is a member of the Scientific Working Group EuPathDB and a member of the World Health Organization’s Technical Expert Group on Drug Efficacy and Response at the Global Malaria Programme.
Dr Volkman earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of California, San Diego and a Doctor of Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health while training in the laboratory of Professor Dyann F. Wirth.