Dr. Rafael Vieira is currently an Assistant Professor of One Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences and CIPHER at UNCC. He completed his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) at Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), Veterinary Residency in Laboratory Diagnostics at São Paulo State University (Unesp), Masters at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR), and his PhD at Londrina State University (UEL), Brazil. Dr. Vieira is the PI of several research projects, and he is engaged in research and teaching focuses on One Health, ecoepidemiology of ticks and tick-borne diseases (TBD), genetic diversity of TBD pathogens, tick microbiome, and pathogen discovery. Over the last 13 years his research has focused on zoonotic diseases, with emphasis in the epidemiology of vector-borne and transboundary infectious diseases, genetic diversity of TBD pathogens, pathogen discovery, One Health, molecular detection and characterization of novel hemotropic Mycoplasma and Anaplasmataceae species and evaluation and validation of diagnostic tests for zoonotic infectious diseases. His research summary includes 115 peer-reviewed publications on Medline and Scopus databases and book chapters. His professional goal is to apply his background to approach global health issues at the human-animal-environment interface from a One Health perspective, with a special focus on vector-borne and zoonotic diseases.