Kelly Baker

Kelly Baker is an Assistant Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health, and Epidemiology at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on identifying how human and animal enteric pathogens are transmitted through the environment to expose and infect young children. Her Social Microbes group conducts research in several areas, including determining the role of humans versus animal sources on enteric pathogen diversity in the environment, identifying spatial clustering patterns of pathogen contamination, quantifying the impact of child play in non-domestic public settings on multi-pathogen exposures of children, and understanding the validity of fecal indicator bacteria at predicting pathogen contamination across different types of environments. Prior to her current position she was an Assistant Research Professor at Emory University, and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland Center for Vaccine Development on the Global Enteric Multicenter Study. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.