Mac Pierce is in a final year PhD student at University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the phylogenetic relationships of virus vectors and intermediate hosts at the species and population levels. Mac is also working on developing methods to enhance the discovery of novel pathogens through next-generation sequencing (NGS). Going forward, he aims to focus on the relationships among pathogens, vectors, and hosts, and to investigate how these relationships have developed over evolutionary time and ecological space. For example, he intends to research the emergence of O'nyong-nyong virus (ONNV), the only alphavirus known to be transmitted by anopheline mosquitoes, and the dynamics of how it diverged from chikungunya virus in East Africa.