Thomas Gillespie

Thomas Gillespie earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Ecology, Ethology, and Evolution from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Florida, receiving an M.S. in Zoology with a concentration in Behavioral Ecology in 2000 and a Ph.D. in Zoology with a concentration in Disease Ecology in 2004. Gillespie then completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2004 to 2005.

From 2006 to 2008, he served as Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Pathobiology at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and concurrently as Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. In these roles, Gillespie directed the Earth and Society Initiative in Disease Emergence and Ecosystem Health, chaired the Earth and Society Summer Research Grant Program, and organized campus-wide seminar series on translational biomedical research and emerging infectious diseases. His research during this period examined how forest fragmentation alters gastrointestinal parasite infections in African primates, revealing elevated parasite richness and prevalence in fragmented habitats that contributed to population declines in species such as red colobus monkeys. Gillespie joined Emory University in 2008 as Assistant Professor in the Departments of Environmental Sciences and Environmental Health at the Rollins School of Public Health, progressing to Associate Professor in 2014 and Professor and Chair in 2021. His research specializations encompass the ecology and emergence of pathogens at the wildlife-human interface amid anthropogenic environmental change, biodiversity dynamics, One Health, planetary health, primatology, and zoonoses, with ongoing projects in Africa and Latin America.

Gillespie has produced key publications including 'Forest fragmentation, the decline of an endangered primate, and changes in host-parasite interactions relative to an unfragmented forest' (American Journal of Primatology, 2008), 'Impending extinction crisis of the world’s primates: why primates matter' (Science Advances, 2017), and 'COVID-clarity demands unification of health and environmental policy' (Global Change Biology, 2021). He has garnered major awards such as Elected Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (2017), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Distinguished STAR Fellow (2009), and EPA STAR Dissertation Fellow (2001-2004). His influence extends through plenary addresses at venues like the World Health Summit (2015) and World Biodiversity Forum (2022), advisory roles with the United Nations High Level Political Forum and IUCN Primate Specialist Group, and editorial positions on EcoHealth and International Journal of Primatology.