Catherine Keim

Catherine is a PhD student who joined the lab in fall 2026. Her research interests lie in how human activities alter wildlife community composition and species interactions through the lens of disease. She holds a BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, where she studied mesocarnivore ecology in Mozambique. Catherine has worked on conservation projects focused on coral microbiomes, elephant herpesvirus, and North American mammal monitoring using camera traps (Snapshot USA). At Columbia, she plans to study how variation in wildlife community composition is driven by habitat structure, and in turn how that can promote or hinder disease transmission between species.