Join us for the next monthly OGHE Global Health Forum on Monday, February 16 from 12-1 pm in Roper Hall (Room 4302) OR online on zoom (https://zoom.us/j/3111814366?omn=97728086196). RSVP by 12 noon on Thursday, February 12 for a boxed lunch – if joining the in-person event.
Natalie Boman, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases
Two decades of Chagas disease research in Peru and Bolivia
Bio: Natalie Bowman, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her AB in Chemistry from Harvard College and an MPhil in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK, before attending Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for medical school. During medical school, Dr. Bowman studied the epidemiology of Chagas disease in periurban communities in Arequipa, Peru, as a Fogarty/Ellison Fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Gilman (Johns Hopkins University), with whom she continues to collaborate. Their work defined key aspects of the epidemiology of Trypanosoma cruzi and its insect vector, Triatoma infestans, and identified early cardiac and autonomic dysfunction in infected children. Dr. Bowman completed her internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by an infectious diseases fellowship in her home state at UNC, where she also earned an MPH in Epidemiology. Her research focuses on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of neglected tropical diseases and emerging infections, particularly those affecting the Americas. She has conducted extensive research throughout Latin America on Chagas disease—including congenital infection and Chagas cardiomyopathy—as well as HIV and neurological opportunistic infections, and vector-borne diseases such as Zika virus. More recently, she has played a leading role in UNC’s clinical and research response to the COVID-19 pandemic, directing three cohort studies.