Prof Andrea Graham

The Graham Group works at the interface of immunology, ecology, parasitology, & evolutionary biology. We and our collaborators include empiricists and theoreticians -- sometimes in the same skin.

Andrea's background is in ecology and evolutionary biology, and that training has shaped her approach to immunoparasitology. She is an Associate Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and a Co-Director of the Global Health Program at Princeton University, USA.

Graham earned an A.B. in Biology and Sculpture from Mount Holyoke College, with an honors thesis on koala chlamydiosis, and a Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University, with a dissertation on the epidemiology and immunology of avian and human schistosomiasis. She completed her postdoctoral training in the immunology of mammalian co-infection at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She then held 2 independent research fellowships at Edinburgh (thanks to awards from The Leverhulme Trust and the UK BBSRC). She moved to Princeton in 2011.

Graham’s research group investigates the evolutionary causes and consequences of immunological heterogeneity among mammals. Her primary study subjects are mice, sheep and people. Her focal questions include: Why do hosts vary so much in their susceptibility to both infectious and autoimmune diseases? How does environment, including exposure to symbionts, alter the expression of genetically encoded defenses? Why do immune cells within a host vary in their defensive roles and rates of induction? Answers to such questions inform both understanding of mammalian evolution and management of human health.