Center for
Global Health

Scholar

Languages: English (native), Spanish (fluent)

Bio statement

I study the interface of insects, pathogens & people. I founded the UPenn/UPCH Zoonotic Disease Laboratory in Arequipa, Peru in 2004 and have led a number of studies on Chagas disease in that city. Recently I've begun studying bugs closer to home — bed bugs.

Recent global health projects

• Disrupting Vector-borne Disease transmission in Complex Urban Environments
• Improving Participation in Door-to-door vector control campaigns

Selected publications

Michael Levy: Kindling, Logs & Coal: The Dynamics of T. cruzi transmission in Arequipa, Peru. Population Biology of Vector-Borne Diseases Edited by John M. Drake, Michael Bonsall, and Michael Strand. Oxford University Press, February 2021.
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198853244.001.0001/oso-9780198853244-chapter-12

Larson A, Paz-Soldan V, Arevalo C, Brown J, Condori-Pino C, Levy M, Neyra RC. : Misuse, perceived risk, and safety issues of household insecticides: qualitative findings from focus groups in Arequipa, Peru. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 2021.
https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0009251

Rose EB, Roy JA, Castillo-Neyra R, Ross ME, Condori-Pino C, Peterson JK, Naquira-Velarde C, Levy MZ. A real-time search strategy for finding urban disease vector infestations. Epidemiologic Methods. 2020 Jan 1;9(1).
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/em-2020-0001/html

R Curtis-Robles, SA Hamer, S Lane, MZ Levy, GL Hamer (2017). Bionomics and Spatial Distribution of Triatomine Vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi in Texas and Other Southern States, USA. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 6 Nov 2017. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.17-0526. 

SK Nutman, A Gutfraind, E Billig, R Castillo-Neyra, MZ Levy (2017). A Bandit Model to Optimize Entomological Surveys. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 95 (5), 53-54.

R Castillo-Neyra, E Zegarra, Y Monroy, RF Bernedo, I Cornejo-Rosello, V Paz-Soldan, MZ Levy (2017). Spatial Association of Canine Rabies Outbreak and Ecological Urban Corridors, Arequipa, Peru. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease 2 (3), 38. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed2030038.

MT Rieders, P Emedom-Nnamdi, MZ Levy (2017). Queueing Analysis of a Chagas Disease Control Campaign. eprint arXiv:1706.08668. 27 Jun 2017.

CM Barbu, K Sethuraman, EMW Billig, MZ Levy (2017). Two‐scale dispersal estimation for biological invasions via synthetic likelihood. Ecography, 21 Aug 2017.  doi: 10.1111/ecog.02575.