I'm currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Clayton-Bush lab at the University of Utah. I completed my Ph.D. in 2026 at the University of Utah where I was advised by Dale Clayton and Sarah Bush. I completed my BS from the University of South Carolina (2020) where I worked with Tim Mousseau and Nathan Senner.  
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​​   I'm disease ecologist interested in how dispersal affects host-parasite interactions in ecological and evolutionary time. Dispersal is a fundamental process by which individuals and their genes move in space. Consequently, dispersal can influence a variety of host and parasite traits including population dynamics, disease prevalence, fitness, genetic variation, host defenses, virulence, and the persistence of species. Although dispersal is a critical part of many organisms' lifestyle, it can be difficult to quantify in natural systems. I use a variety of field surveys and molecular methods to quantify parasite dispersal among individual hosts, among host populations, and among host species.

​Madi Waller (she/her)
[email protected]
Clayton-Bush Lab | ASB 564 ​