Dr Karina Mondragon Shem

Karina Mondragon-Shem is an entomologist working on neglected vector-borne diseases. She specialised in entomology during her undergraduate studies, and worked on leishmaniasis ecoepidemiology in different countries, studying sandflies, reservoir hosts, screening patients, and engaging communities often in rural and remote areas.

She went on to study for an MSc in Medical Parasitology at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, spending three months in India evaluating sandfly collection methods. Karina then pursued a PhD at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), studying the salivary glycoproteins of mosquitoes, sandflies, tsetse, triatomines and ticks. During this time, she also participated in a leishmaniasis project in Saudi Arabia, contributing to the identification of sandfly species and the development of an assay to detect exposure to sandfly bites. 

During her postdoctoral research at LSTM, Karina has worked on the ecology and control of tsetse and rhodesiense sleeping sickness in Malawi, as part of the Strengthening Resilience Against Sleeping Sickness (STRESS) project. During this study she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Institutional Translational Partnership Award to extend this work to a second disease focus. A second Wellcome Trust iTPA funded a strategic mapping exercise on climate and health activities at LSTM to shape institutional priorities. She was also awarded the Director’s Catalyst Fund by LSTM to study the age of tsetse using mid-infrared spectroscopy.

Karina is a member of the Climate, Environment and Health Working Group, and serves on the MSc Ethics Committee at LSTM.