Shaun Dergousoff

Biography

Dr. Shaun Dergousoff is a research scientist at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. He completed his B.Sc. (Microbiology and Immunology) at the University of Saskatchewan. He then worked as a research technician at the U of S, followed by several years as a research and diagnostic technician for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in Saskatoon, SK (animal and food parasitology), and Winnipeg, MB (bovine spongiform encephalopathy surveillance program). Shaun returned to the U of S where he completed a Ph.D. on vector ecology and his thesis focused on the identification of bacteria in ticks from western Canada. Following graduate studies, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and studied the geographic distribution of ticks, tick paralysis, and the effects of environmental conditions on tick activity and survival.

Dr. Dergousoff joined the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre as a research scientist in 2015. Areas of interest include the biology and ecology of parasitic arthropods of livestock (such as ticks, mosquitoes and biting midges). He uses field and lab-based approaches to better understand the interaction between the arthropod and the environment, and its vertebrate hosts to address endemic and emerging arthropod-based threats to livestock health and production due to direct effects of blood-feeding and pathogen transmission. Current research focuses on biological and environmental factors that determine the distribution and abundance of ticks, occurrence of tick paralysis in livestock, and the host range of mosquitoes and midges. The goal of our research is to inform risk assessments and aid the development of effective mitigation and control strategies to prevent or reduce animal health issues and livestock production losses.