I’m a cellular microbiologist interested in understanding the interactions between Borrelia burgdorferi and its various hosts that enable the extremes of infection: wild rodents that remain chronically infected for years without ever displaying symptoms and the rare subset of human infected individuals that remain symptomatic even after the bacteria is eradicated from their bodies. I hope studying these extremes will help clarify how Lyme disease takes hold, as well as give insight into other zoonotic and chronic illnesses.