Lee Rafuse Haines

Dr. Lee Haines is a vector biologist (a researcher of the wee insect beasties that spread disease) focused on a simple mission: fewer bites, fewer infections for people and animals. She holds a PhD in Tropical Medicine (University of Liverpool, UK) and an MSc in Biochemistry & Microbiology (University of Victoria, Canada). At the University of Notre Dame, she studies interactions between biting insects and ticks, their resident microbes, and the parasite they carry, and then turns that knowledge into practical advice and tools for public and animal health.

Her research spans lab benches and field sites in Canada, the UK, Kenya, Uganda, and Saudi Arabia, with new partnerships in Spain, Portugal, and South Africa. Past projects at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine addressed safer ways to curb disease-carrying insect populations, building simple tests to measure how intensely insects bite, decoding cues that guide tsetse breeding and maternal behavior, and surveying aquatic and veterinary parasites. One project she is currently working on in the Acosta-Serrano group is the repurposing of herbicidal chemistries into new tools that kill blood-feeding insects and the diseases they spread.

With 20+ years in parasite culture and insect husbandry, she managed the largest operational tsetse breeding colony in the UK and gained deep insight into tsetse biology, fitness, and responses to microbes and parasites. She has raised colonies of mosquitoes, kissing bugs and sand flies, and brings these organisms into hands-on experiences so students meet the vectors behind the headlines. A self-professed tick hater, Lee is nonetheless fascinated by the puzzle of Alpha-gal Syndrome (AGS), which is the tick-borne allergy to red meat products reshaping how many people think about food and medicine. Beyond the lab, Lee champions art-science collaborations and can often be found working on her new project to co-create with conductor Cynthia Katsarelis, a symphony performance depicting the terrifying global impact of insect extinctions. *Symphonic Wings: A Story of Peril and Promise* will be performed in the spring of 2027 by the South Bend Symphony Orchestra.