Jodie A. Jarvis

Jodie Jarvis is the Deputy Director of the New York State Department of Health – Wadsworth Center Rabies Laboratory. She received her Bachelor of Science from University of Wisconsin where she studied wildlife ecology, discovering her interest in zoonotic and wildlife diseases.

Jodie was first a volunteer and later a technician at the USGS – National Wildlife Health Center. She assisted in bird necropsies, laboratory tests, animal handling, and collecting samples in the field for avian botulism, plague, and avian vacuolar myelinopathy research.

In 2001 she participated in the Wadsworth Center’s Emerging Infectious Disease Fellowship Program where she partnered her interest in zoonotic diseases with public health. Rotations were done in zoonotic epidemiology, the arbovirus laboratory, and the rabies laboratory. Following the fellowship she joined the rabies laboratory as a research scientist as well as becoming a member of the Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Response Team.

Jodie’s interests are in rabies DFA testing, rabies infection in bats, and rabies serum neutralization testing. She is a member of the USDA APHIS WS National Rabies Management Program’s Blue Ribbon Panel Serology Subcommittee aiding in their monitoring and evaluating oral rabies vaccination efforts targeting free-ranging wild carnivores.