Dr. Sharmaine Miller is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Her research focuses on stress, One Health, and health equity and she is interested in human-animal relationships and their impact on both human and animal health.
Dr. Miller completed her undergraduate studies at Towson University (2010 - 2014) and her PhD in Biology from Pennsylvania State University (2014 - 2019). Her PhD focused on stress (biology and exposure) and its effects on animal behavior. She is currently conducting research on the stress and health impacts of animal-assisted therapy as well as potential health impacts of pet ownership in minority populations.
In this episode, we talk about the impacts of development stress on behavior and differences between stress in captive vs. free-living animals. We then move on to a discussion of One Health (an interdisciplinary framework examining how local environment can impact human and animal health) and how each of these three segments interact to influence each other. Dr. Miller discusses her work with animal shelters and animal-assisted therapy.