Biography

Chad L. Cross is a researcher who also teaches courses for the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics housed within UNLV's School of Public Health. He has expertise on the ecology and epidemiology of parasites and vector-borne diseases — illnesses that can be transmitted directly or indirectly between animals and humans, such as Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis, and West Nile virus. He also studies medical and veterinary entomology, a branch of zoology that examines the biology and control of ticks, mites, and other insects. 

Prior to academia, Cross did stints with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Veterans Health Administration, and worked in private industry as a quantitative ecologist and statistician.

His research has investigated chronic and infectious diseases; used statistics to examine problems in the health, psychological, environmental, and ecological sciences, such as clinical trials and avian fatality around wind turbines; and taken him into the field to study arthropod-borne and parasitic diseases. His projects have explored topics such as PTSD in veterans, links between neurodevelopmental disorders and sports concussions, and postmortem THC levels in decedents following the legalization of recreational cannabis in Clark County, Nevada.