Professor Dr. Jonathan Epstein

Biography

Jonathan Epstein is an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a veterinarian epidemiologist. His research primarily focuses on the ecology of spillover zoonotic viruses that affect wildlife, domestic animals, and humans, particularly high-consequence viruses associated with wildlife, including Nipah virus, Ebola, Marburg virus, avian influenza, and zoonotic coronaviruses. Dr. Epstein collaborates with government health and wildlife agencies globally and intergovernmental institutions such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Africa CDC, and IUCN to develop zoonotic disease surveillance systems. He is also involved in teaching and mentoring graduate students at Columbia, with additional adjunct faculty appointments at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and Harvard University’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. His extensive research has been published in prestigious scientific journals, including Science, Nature, and PNAS, and has been featured in media outlets like 60 Minutes and CNN. Dr. Epstein served as the Chief Scientific Advisor for the exhibit “Outbreak: Epidemics Connected World,” which opened at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History in 2017.

Research Interests

Awards