{"id":78418,"date":"2026-07-28T11:56:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T18:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=78418"},"modified":"2026-07-29T08:34:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:34:45","slug":"anna-kang-grfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/anna-kang-grfp\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes ticks tick?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ticks\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0fly or jump. Yet in Arizona, they wreak all sorts of havoc.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The brown dog tick, which thrives in hot urban environments like the Valley of the Sun, has a knack for attaching itself to our furry friends. Their bite can infect dogs with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which causes swollen lymph nodes, poor appetite and joint pain. Occasionally, the illness even spreads to humans.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s\u00a0the\u00a0bad news. The good news is that NAU graduate student\u00a0<\/span>Anna Kang\u00a0<\/span><\/b>won a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship to compare two\u00a0different types\u00a0of brown dog ticks\u2014and Kang\u2019s work could help keep Arizonans safe.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kang, a master\u2019s student in the Department of Biological Sciences who uses they\/them pronouns, is one of five Lumberjacks to receive three years of research funding through the 2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Program.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0one of about 2,500\u00a0grad\u00a0students nationally to win\u00a0the competitive\u00a0funding\u00a0this year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why focus on ticks? Well, Kang said,\u00a0why\u00a0not?\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, I became really interested in thinking about how disease spreads,\u201d Kang said. \u201cWhen my mentor brought up ticks, I thought, \u2018That sounds interesting. What can I make of this?\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In assistant professor\u00a0<\/span>Kelly Speer<\/span><\/b>\u2019s lab, Kang will compare the traits of two lineages of ticks, the tropical brown dog\u00a0tick\u00a0and the temperate brown dog tick.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Recent studies indicate that these two lineages may\u00a0actually be\u00a0different species, generating more questions on their different capabilities to spread disease.\u00a0Historically, the temperate lineage has been more common in Arizona, but the tropical lineage has gained a growing foothold here in recent years.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the temperate and tropical dog ticks have been spreading more; due to climate change, they can transmit themselves farther,\u201d Kang said. \u201cArizona and Texas are currently some of the only states where we\u2019ve identified both of these tick groups spreading at the same time.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To find out more about brown dog ticks, Kang\u00a0has to\u00a0collect the ticks themselves.\u00a0Because this type of tick is rarely found in the wild,\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0working this summer with animal shelters in the Valley to source the tiny arachnids, both dead and alive.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in Flagstaff, Kang will run several experiments on the ticks. After exposing them to a variety of environmental changes, Kang will examine their breathing patterns and take a closer look at their microbiomes. By taking these steps, Kang will be able to measure vector competence\u2014that is, how good each lineage is at transmitting disease across different regions and how quickly their disease can spread.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kang hopes their research project will further improve research that can protect Arizonans and their pets from harm as brown dog ticks continue to spread in the Valley and\u00a0perhaps also\u00a0in\u00a0northern Arizona, whose residents often travel south for outdoor opportunities and pet adoptions.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to further expand our understanding of what brown dog ticks are capable of,\u201d Kang said.\u00a0\u201cWhat is their spread looking like as a whole in the U.S., especially as it seems like\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0becoming more common? How can we find out when tick populations might be increasing, and what can we do to help people and their dogs when that happens?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ticks\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0fly or jump. Yet in Arizona, they wreak all sorts of havoc.\u202f\u00a0 The brown dog tick, which thrives in hot urban environments like the Valley of the Sun, has a knack for attaching itself to our furry friends. Their bite can infect dogs with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which causes swollen lymph nodes, poor appetite…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2880,"featured_media":78420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78418"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78431,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78418\/revisions\/78431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}