Dr. Kelly Speer (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Pathogen & Microbiome Institute at Northern Arizona University. Speer’s research leverages field-based systems and natural history collections to examine the impact of environmental change on pathogen and vector dynamics. She specifically focuses on the interactions between bats, blood-feeding arthropods, and the beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms associated with both as a model for understanding how complex natural communities respond to disturbances like habitat loss or disease emergence. Speer completed her postdoctoral research in Biodiversity Genomics and Theoretical Medicine at the National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Biology from the Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History, her M.S. in Zoology at the University of Florida, and a B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Chemistry at the University of New Mexico. Prior to joining NAU, she we an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan and Director of the Michigan Pathogen Biorepository.