Faculty Profile

Joseph Eisenberg

Joseph N.S. Eisenberg, PhD, MPH

  • Professor, Epidemiology
  • Professor, Global Public Health

Joseph Eisenberg studies infectious disease epidemiology with a focus on waterborne and vectorborne diseases. His broad research interests-global and domestic-integrate theoretical work in developing disease transmission models and empirical work in designing and conducting epidemiology studies. He is especially interested in the environmental determinants of infectious diseases.

  • PhD, University of California Berkeley/San Francisco, 1992
  • MPH, University of California, Berkeley, 1991
  • BS, University of California, Berkeley, 1982

Research Interests:
Infectious disease, transmission modeling, risk assessment, waterborne pathogens, vectorborne disease

Research Projects:
Eisenberg's research platform in Ecuador explores how changes in the social and natural environments, mediated by road construction, affect the epidemiology of pathogens. Current projects in Ecuador include the study of dengue transmission across an array of urban and rural environments, a birth cohort study examining how the microbiome impacts diarrheal disease epidemiology during a child's first two years of life, and the zoonotic potential of Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) infections.

Eisenberg has collaborations in several global settings (Mexico, Israel, Ethiopia, and Kenya) to address questions central to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) risks.

Through a number of funding mechanisms and collaboration Eisenberg develops and implements infection transmission models to better understand mechanisms of transmission and potential intervention and control of enteric pathogens.

Domestic research interests have been focused on the development of a new microbial risk assessment framework that shifts the traditional approach of individual-based static models to population-based dynamic models. Eisenberg has applied these disease transmission models to assess the public health risk from exposures to microbial agents in drinking waters, recreational waters, and biosolids.

Brouwer A.F., Eisenberg J.N.S., Pomeroya C.D., Shulman L.M., Hindiyeh M., Manor Y., Grotto I., Koopman J.S., Eisenberg M.C. (2018) Silent polio outbreak in Rahat, Israel: Epidemiologic findings based on modeling of environmental surveillance data. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi/10.1073/pnas.1808798115. 

Mullis-Kraay A.N., Brouwer A. F., Lin N., Collender, , P.A., Remais J. V., Eisenberg J.N.S (2018), Modeling environmentally-mediated rotavirus transmission: the role of temperature and hydrologic factors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(12):E2782-E2790. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1719579115. PMC5866583

Carlton E., Eisenberg J.N.S., Goldstick J., Cevallos W., Trostle J., Levy K (2014) Heavy rainfall events and diarrhea incidence: The role of social and environmental factors. American Journal of Epidemiology, 179(3):344-52 (PMC3895100).

Li, S., Eisenberg J.N.S., Spiknall I., Koopman J.S. (2009) Dynamics and Control of Infections Transmitted from Person to Person through the Environment. American Journal of Epidemiology. 170(2): 257-265.

Eisenberg, J.N.S., Desai, M.A., Levy, K., Bates, S.J., Liang, S., Naumoff, K., Scott, J.C. (August, 2007). Environmental determinants of infectious disease: A framework for tracking causal links and guiding public health research. Environmental Health Perspectives 1216-1223.

Eisenberg, J.N.S., Cevallos, W., Ponce, K., Levy, K., Bates, S., Scott, J., Hubbard, A., Viera, N., Segovia, R., Espinel, M., Trueba, G., Riley, L., Trostle, J. (2006). Environmental change and infectious disease: How new roads affect the transmission of diarrheal pathogens in rural Ecuador. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 19460-19465.

Email: jnse@umich.edu 
Office: 734-764-5435
Fax: 734-998-6837

Address:
1415 Washington Heights
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

For media inquiries: sph.media@umich.edu