Emily Begnel is a Research Scientist at the Global Center for Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents, and Children (GWACh) in the Department of Global Health. Emily is an epidemiologist with research interests at the intersection of viral infectious diseases, including HIV and cytomegalovirus, and maternal and child health. Since 2017, she has supported a portfolio of projects across GWACh’s HIV and Co-Infections Through the Lifecycle Scientific Priority Area, including serving as a study coordinator and analyst for the Linda Kizazi Study (PI: Dr. Jennifer Slyker), a cohort study of mother-child pairs in Nairobi, Kenya that evaluates how maternal HIV infection affects pediatric health and development outcomes. Emily completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Washington in 2024. Her dissertation leveraged data from the Linda Kizazi cohort to compare the morbidity, mortality, and gut virome composition of children who are HIV-exposed, uninfected versus HIV-unexposed. Emily also has an MPH in Epidemiology (UW, 2017) and received a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a BA in Spanish from Rice University (2015).