Dr. Kim R Blasdell is an infectious disease scientist with a focus on zoonotic pathogens. Her initial studies were in Zoology at the University of Liverpool (in 2002), where she conducted an honours project on the shedding behaviour of snakes. After graduation, she undertook a PhD at the same institution, studying the rodent-borne viruses, LCMV, and cowpox virus, in their natural hosts. Her first position after this was as the research coordinator for Frontier's Cambodian project, which saw her living in the jungle for a year, supervising volunteers and conducting biodiversity assessments. After some time spent travelling, she returned to Cambodia as a postdoc at the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge. She moved to CSIRO to start her second postdoc in 2010, changing her research focus to arboviruses, particularly those affecting cattle. During this time, she developed her skills in NGS and characterised several little-known arboviruses. On completion of this project, she continued at CSIRO as a research scientist, continuing to study livestock-associated arboviruses but also returning to rodent-borne viruses. Her current research focus is on (i) understanding the transmission routes and role of possums on the ecology of Mycobacterium ulcerans, the agent of Buruli ulcer, (ii) determining the ecology of several vector-borne diseases, including a novel Borrelia sp. and (iii) investigating novel technologies for the automation of pathogen surveillance in wildlife and vectors.