Rhea Coler is the Vice President of Preclinical Biology at IDRI. Her work focuses on the characterization of candidate vaccines for tuberculosis, leishmaniasis, pneumococcus, malaria and chlamydia. Uncovering the roles that innate and adaptive immunity play during these infectious processes are key research questions in the Coler lab. Elucidating the mechanisms of protection against these diseases could lead to the development of novel prophylactic and therapeutic interventions. Rhea currently serves on the boards of the SPHCM and Bertschi School, and is an Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. She has been the recipient of several fellowships and grants awarded by the NIH/NIAID, the Medical Research Council (MRC), and PATH Vaccine Solutions. She has several patents and has co-authored more than 20 original articles. After doing field work on malaria control in Tanzania, she returned to Trinidad where she worked in the Department of Parasitology and Entomology at the Caribbean Epidemiology Center (CAREC), funded in part by the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. Rhea received her BSc from McGill University and her MSc in the field of Medical Parasitology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She obtained her PhD from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine (SPHCM) at the University of Washington.

Public Health and Community Medicine