Sonsiray Alvarez-Narvaez

Dr. Alvarez-Narvaez’s research focuses on the molecular epidemiology, genomics, evolution, and host–pathogen interactions of emerging and opportunistic infectious diseases, with an emphasis on veterinary and zoonotic pathogens. Her work seeks to understand how pathogens emerge and adapt and to translate these insights into improved approaches for pathogen detection, surveillance, and disease control.

She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology and Biomedical Sciences from the University of Navarra in 2010, followed by a master’s degree in Medical Microbiology from the University of Edinburgh in 2013. She subsequently earned her PhD in Infection and Immunity from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh in 2017. Her doctoral research focused on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial virulence, host–pathogen interactions, and antimicrobial resistance in Rhodococcus equi, an important equine pathogen. Following her doctoral training, Dr. Alvarez-Narvaez completed postdoctoral research in the Department of Large Animal Medicine at the University of Georgia, where she continued her work on rhodococcosis while expanding her expertise in molecular and genomic approaches to infectious disease. She later joined the University of Georgia Athens Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory as a Clinical Assistant Professor, where she combined veterinary diagnostics with molecular and next-generation sequencing technologies to investigate and characterize infectious pathogens.

She is currently an Avian Virologist at the U.S. National Poultry Research Center, where she studies avian viral diseases and develops genomic and molecular tools for pathogen detection, surveillance, and characterization. Her research integrates comparative genomics, phylogenetics, molecular diagnostics, and next-generation sequencing to investigate pathogen diversity, transmission, evolution, virulence, and adaptation. She also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia, where she remains involved in research on important veterinary bacterial pathogens.