Seth O’Neal is an assistant professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health. He also holds a visiting faculty position at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, and is co-director of the university’s Center for Global Health in Tumbes, Peru.

O’Neal is engaged in research to develop cost-effective and sustainable control interventions for neglected tropical infections in resource-limited settings. His primary focus is on Taenia solium, the pork tapeworm, which is an important cause of preventable epilepsy across much of Latin America, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The parasite also perpetuates poverty in these regions by inflicting financial losses on small landowners due to contaminated pork. Through National Institutes of Health and foundation funding, O’Neal conducts community trials of control interventions, as well as clinical and epidemiological studies. His research explores the biological, environmental, social and cultural factors that drive transmission of the parasite, as these affect control interventions.