I am a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Sophie St-Hilaire and Dr. Javier Sánchez on the prevention and control of Piscirickettsiosis. We are using epidemiological methods with data obtained from Chilean salmon farms to assess and improve current strategies to prevent and control this disease.

Thanks to the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) Early Career Development Grant, I was able to present our work at the first conference in aquatic animal epidemiology (AquaEpi I) in Oslo, Norway, during September 2016. The conference, organized by the International Society of Aquatic Animal Epidemiology (ISAAE), allowed us not only to disseminate our findings but also to discuss our results with top researchers on the topic of fish disease epidemiology.

I appreciate that CERC understands how the ECD grant makes possible for new researchers to meet people that will lead to fruitful collaboration and to develop the skills needed to succeed in academia.