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Kaylee Byers

Assistant Professor

Health Sciences

Kaylee Byers

Assistant Professor

Health Sciences

Areas of interest

One Health; Planetary Health; Wildlife Health; Human-Animal Relationships; Human Dimension; Health Equity; Social Determinants of Health; Ecological Determinants of Health; Health Communications; Implementation Science; Knowledge Mobilization; Community-Based Research

Biography

Dr. Kaylee Byers is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at 間眅埶AV, a Senior Scientist with the Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, and the Deputy Director of the British Columbia node of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative. Dr. Byers is a settler scholar of European ancestry, with roots in both Canadas Maritime (Nova Scotia) and prairie provinces (Alberta). She is an interdisciplinary scholar with over a decade of experience working in the field of One Health, which recognizes the interconnected health of people, animals, and the environment.

Dr. Byers received her PhD from the University of British Columbia, where she studied the disease ecology of urban rats in Vancouver. Her work combined genomics, epidemiology, molecular biology, ecological field methods, and qualitative methodologies to explore the complex health and management challenges posed by rats in cities. Outside of research, she is also an active and enthusiastic science communicator. She co-founded, organizes and hosts Nerd Nite Vancouver, a science seminar series which aims to share science in a casual setting. She is also the host of Genome British Columbias award-winning podcast Nice Genes which explores the role of genomics in society.

Research Interests

Dr. Byers is interested in collaborative, community-based research. She leads a broad research program in One Health, Human dimensions and Implementation Science (OH-HI Science) that centers around enhancing local, national, and global capacity to better detect, manage, and mitigate health threats at the nexus of human, animal, and environmental health. Her current projects include strengthening detection and management of Chronic Wasting Disease (a prion pathogen that affects cervids) and Avian Influenza Virus (which affects wild waterbirds and poultry). Using a One Health lens, an interdisciplinary approach, and mixed methods, she investigates how community knowledge and perceptions of One Health issues relate to public participation in disease surveillance and health promoting behaviours, and identifies communication strategies, programs, and policies that support communities in their health decisions. She is particularly interested in projects that integrate innovative and creative forms of knowledge mobilization.

Publications

View Dr. Byers' publications at

Courses

Spring 2024

繚&紳莉莽梯; : Presidents Dream Colloquium in One Health: Connection and Collaborations