Goucher Environmental Dialogues: Hawai’i Honeycreepers vs. Mosquitos

Join host, Jenn da Rosa, EdD, for a discussion with Georgetown University Research Fellow, Dr. Oswaldo Villena. This webinar, Goucher Environmental Dialogues: Hawai’i Honeycreepers vs. Mosquitos, is on Tuesday, September 30 from 6-7 pm ET. In this webinar, Research Fellow Dr. Oswaldo Villena will share insights on how mosquitoes, avian malaria, and a warming climate have decimated honeycreeper populations. Honeycreepers are a group of small, colorful, endemic Hawaiian forest birds. In this webinar, Research Fellow Dr. Oswaldo Villena will share insights on how mosquitoes, avian malaria, and a warming climate have decimated honeycreeper populations. Honeycreepers are a group of small, colorful, endemic Hawaiian forest birds.

Oswaldo Carpio Villena is a Research Fellow at The Earth Commons at Georgetown University. His research integrates statistics and GIS to understand ecological processes in epidemiology and public health, with a focus on the effects of climate change on vector-borne diseases. Oswaldo’s paper, "Influence of environmental, geographic, socio-demographic, and epidemiological factors on the presence of malaria at the community level in two continents," was recognized as one of the Top 100 most downloaded Microbiology papers of 2024. Oswaldo holds a Ph.D. in Marine, Estuarine, and Environmental Sciences from the University of Maryland College Park, an M.S. in Environmental Sciences from Towson University, and an M.S. in Agrarian Innovation for Rural Development from the National Agrarian University in Peru. His most recent work examined the environmental and geographical factors that influence malaria transmission in South Africa.