Vanessa Ezenwa elected Ecological Society of America Fellow

by Michaela Herrmann, Yale University
April 16, 2026

Vanessa Ezenwa, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, has been elected as a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in recognition of her contributions to the science of ecology.

Ezenwa is one of eight new fellows elected this year. The honor recognizes ecologists who have made “outstanding contributions to advancing or applying ecological knowledge” in academia, government, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector. Fellows of the ESA are elected for life.

Ezenwa’s research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases in wild animals. She studies how interactions between hosts and pathogens occurring at the scale of individual organisms translate to broader ecological and epidemiological patterns. Her work integrates perspectives from animal behavior, ecology, evolution and immunology to make sense of complex infectious disease processes operating in natural populations. She was previously elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a Fulbright Scholar Award, among others. 

Keep reading: https://fas.yale.edu/news-announcements/news/vanessa-ezenwa-elected-ecological-society-america-fellow

Read the ESA announcement: https://esa.org/blog/2026/04/15/ecological-society-of-america-announces-2026-fellows/