About

Nita Bharti is an Associate Professor of Biology and Lloyd Huck Early Career Professor at the Pennsylvania State University. She is affiliated with the Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. Her educational background includes a Ph.D. in Biology from Penn State University, with a focus on Infectious Disease Dynamics, a Master’s degree in Biological Anthropology from Penn State, and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, Anthropology, and Zoology with honors from the University of Michigan. She completed postdoctoral training at Princeton University in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and The School of Public & International Affairs, as well as at Stanford University at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Her research interests center on the links between infectious diseases, movement, and environmental factors, with her lab dedicated to exploring these complex interactions. Nita Bharti is actively involved in teaching, notably instructing courses such as 'The Biology of Human Infectious Diseases' and a First Year Seminar. Her work and contributions are recognized through her role as an associate professor and her involvement in various academic and research initiatives at Penn State.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Environmental health
• Zoology
• Virology
• Medicine
• Evolutionary biology
• Geography

Selected publications

• Arch replacement in a 4-year-old child with traumatic aortic dissection – An unseen reality

  Annals of Pediatric Cardiology · 2025-03-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We present a case of a 4-year-old boy with posttraumatic non-A non-B aortic dissection. Pediatric aortic dissection is a rare entity with ill-defined risk factors. A high index of suspicion is needed to identify these patients with aggressive management to offset a high mortality rate. Diagnosis was established with a computed tomography scan, which showed a dissection flap in the aortic arch. The child was taken up for surgery and underwent successful aortic arch replacement with arch vessel reimplantation. We report this case not only because of its incidental rarity but also to highlight the meticulous planning and execution that was essential for a successful outcome.

  PublisherDOI

• Latent class analysis identifies risk groups to model the expected benefits of SARS-CoV-2 interventions among university students

  Scientific Reports · 2025-04-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Non-pharmaceutical public health measures (PHMs) were central to pre-vaccination efforts to reduce Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) exposure risk; heterogeneity in adherence placed bounds on their potential effectiveness, and correlation in their adoption makes assessing the impact attributable to an individual PHM difficult. During the Fall 2020 semester, we used a longitudinal cohort design in a university student population to conduct a behavioral survey of intention to adhere to PHMs, paired with an IgG serosurvey to quantify SARS-CoV-2 exposure at the end of the semester. Using latent class analysis on behavioral survey responses, we identified three distinct groups among the 673 students with IgG samples: 256 (38.04%) students were in the most adherent group, intending to follow all guidelines, 306 (46.21%) in the moderately-adherent group, and 111 (15.75%) in the least-adherent group, rarely intending to follow any measure, with adherence negatively correlated with seropositivity of 25.4%, 32.2% and 37.7%, respectively. Moving all individuals in an SIR model into the most adherent group resulted in a 77-96% reduction in seroprevalence, dependent on assumed assortativity. The potential impact of increasing PHM adherence was limited by the substantial exposure risk in the large proportion of students already following all PHMs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Behavioral interventions and respiratory virus incidence in a two-cohort study

  Scientific Reports · 2025-08-27 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Behavioral interventions are a critical tool for managing novel and emerging pathogens. Examples include hand-washing, masking, or staying home when feeling ill. The dynamics of behavioral interventions have been difficult to measure and are poorly understood. This makes it difficult to assess their impact during outbreaks. In this study, we investigate the uptake, persistence, and waning, of behavioral interventions against respiratory viruses among two cohorts in Centre County, PA. We focused on the three years following the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. We detected clusters of behaviors that followed similar patterns of engagement and variations over time. We also identified novel behavioral interventions that were introduced to combat COVID-19 that coincided with a reduction in non-COVID-19 respiratory disease incidence. Additionally, we detected changes in risk perception and changes in behaviors over time. These findings strengthen our understanding of factors that may influence behavior and inform recommendations around behavioral interventions during outbreak management, including information dissemination and behavioral guidelines.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Impact of a multi-pronged cholera intervention in an endemic setting

  PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025-02-19

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Cholera is a bacterial water-borne diarrheal disease transmitted via the fecal-oral route that causes high morbidity in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. It is preventable with vaccination, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) improvements. However, the impact of vaccination in endemic settings remains unclear. Cholera is endemic in the city of Kalemie, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where both seasonal mobility and the lake, a potential environmental reservoir, may promote transmission. Kalemie received a vaccination campaign and WASH improvements in 2013-2016. We assessed the impact of this intervention to inform future control strategies in endemic settings. We fit compartmental models considering seasonal mobility and environmentally-based transmission. We estimated the number of cases the intervention avoided, and the relative contributions of the elements promoting local cholera transmission. We estimated the intervention avoided 5,259 cases (95% credible interval: 1,576.6-11,337.8) over 118 weeks. Transmission did not rely on seasonal mobility and was primarily environmentally-driven. Removing environmental exposure or contamination could control local transmission. Repeated environmental exposure could maintain high population immunity and decrease the impact of vaccination in similar endemic areas. Addressing environmental exposure and contamination should be the primary target of interventions in such settings.

  PublisherDOI

• Pandemic-era sports league operations as a new paradigm for local epidemic resilience

  medRxiv · 2025-10-27

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Strategic, coordinated, and rapid responses are essential when pathogens emerge, yet these responses are often mishandled during epidemics due to myriad factors, including entrenched socioeconomic and political constraints. Consequently, local communities are often left unprotected. Early in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the National Basketball Association (NBA) implemented a variation of standard public health measures, popularly termed the “bubble”, that kept the league transmission-free for the 2020 playoffs. The NBA “bubble” was a sophisticated system of risk stratification predicated on a strategic design of spatial, movement, and contact heterogeneities. Five years later, we examine its fundamental features and explore its potential application to future epidemics. We formalize the bubble’s mechanisms in the context of existing epidemiological theory, generate forecasts of management outcomes, and propose a theoretical framework that redirects epidemic modeling away from its traditional top-down control philosophy toward targeted protection and local resilience. The new framework can ultimately be used to support the design and local governance of community protections, particularly when centralized epidemic responses prove inadequate.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Anthropogenic land consolidation intensifies zoonotic host diversity loss and disease transmission in human habitats

  Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2024-11-18 · 20 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The Maximal Expected Benefit of SARS-CoV-2 Interventions Among University Students: A Simulation Study Using Latent Class Analysis

  medRxiv · 2024-11-04 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Non-pharmaceutical public health measures (PHMs) were central to pre-vaccination efforts to reduce Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) exposure risk; heterogeneity in adherence placed bounds on their potential effectiveness, and correlation in their adoption makes assessing the impact attributable to an individual PHM difficult. During the Fall 2020 semester, we used a longitudinal cohort design in a university student population to conduct a behavioral survey of intention to adhere to PHMs, paired with an IgG serosurvey to quantify SARS-CoV-2 exposure at the end of the semester. Using Latent Class Analysis on behavioral survey responses, we identified three distinct groups among the 673 students with IgG samples: 256 (38.04%) students were in the most adherent group, intending to follow all guidelines, 306 (46.21%) in the moderately-adherent group, and 111 (15.75%) in the least-adherent group, rarely intending to follow any measure, with adherence negatively correlated with seropositivity of 25.4%, 32.2% and 37.7%, respectively. Moving all individuals in an SIR model into the most adherent group resulted in a 76-93% reduction in seroprevalence, dependent on assumed assortativity. The potential impact of increasing PHM adherence was limited by the substantial exposure risk in the large proportion of students already following all PHMs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Native and non-native winter foraging resources do not explain Pteropus alecto winter roost occupancy in Queensland, Australia

  Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · 2024-10-18

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Anthropogenic land use change concurrent with introductions of non-native species alters the abundance and distribution of foraging resources for wildlife. This is particularly concerning when resource bottlenecks for wildlife are linked to spillover of infectious diseases to humans. Hendra virus is a bat-borne pathogen in eastern Australia. Spillovers align with winter food shortages for flying foxes and flying foxes foraging in agriculture or peri-urban lands, as opposed to native forests. It is believed the increased abundance and spatiotemporal reliability of non-native species planted in anthropogenically modified areas compared to native, ephemeral diet species may be a key draw for flying foxes into urban and peri-urban areas. We investigate the explanatory power of environmental factors on the winter roost occupancy of the reservoir for Hendra virus, the black flying fox Pteropus alecto , from 2007-2020 in Queensland, Australia. We measured the extent, spatial aggregation, and annual reliability of typical (i.e. native) and atypical (i.e. non-native) winter habitat species in 20km foraging areas around roosts surveyed by the National Flying Fox Monitoring Program. We find that neither the extent nor the spatial distribution of winter habitats explained black flying fox winter roost presence. Although the establishment of roosts was associated with high reliability for typical winter diet species, the reliability of frequently listed winter diet species surrounding surveyed roosts was not different between roosts that were occupied versus unoccupied in the winter. Significant interactions between lagged weather conditions and winter habitats identified by the best model did not reflect observable differences in patterns of occupancy upon scrutiny. Static measures of winter habitat and weather conditions poorly explained the winter roost occupancy of black flying foxes. Understanding the drivers of flying fox movement and presence requires further investigation before they can be thoughtfully integrated into Hendra spillover prevention efforts and flying fox management.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The impact of behavioral interventions on respiratory viruses in a two-cohort study

  medRxiv · 2024-05-07

  preprintOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Behavioral interventions are a critical tool for managing novel and emerging pathogens. However, the dynamics of behavioral interventions have been difficult to measure and are poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the uptake, persistence, and waning, of behavioral interventions among two cohorts in Centre County, PA, focusing on the three years following the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. We detected clusters of behaviors that followed similar patterns of engagement and variations over time and identified some novel COVID-19 behavioral interventions that may have severely disrupted non-COVID-19 respiratory disease incidence. Additionally, we detected links between changes in risk perception and changes in behaviors over time. These findings can inform recommendations around behavioral interventions during outbreak management, including information dissemination and behavioral guidelines.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Native and Non-native Winter Foraging Resources Do Not Explain Black Flying Fox Winter Roost Occupancy in Queensland, Australia

  2024-08-29

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Anthropogenic land use change concurrent with introductions of non-native species alters the abundance and distribution of foraging resources for wildlife. This is particularly concerning when resource bottlenecks for wildlife are linked to spillover of infectious diseases to humans. Hendra virus is a bat-borne pathogen in eastern Australia. Spillovers align with winter food shortages for flying foxes and flying foxes foraging in agriculture or peri-urban lands, as opposed to native forests. It is believed the increased abundance and spatiotemporal reliability of non-native species planted in anthropogenically modified areas compared to native, ephemeral diet species may be a key draw for flying foxes into urban and peri-urban areas. We investigate the explanatory power of environmental factors on the winter roost occupancy of the reservoir for Hendra virus, Pteropus alecto, from 2007-2020 in Queensland, Australia. We measure the extent, spatial aggregation, and annual reliability of typical (i.e. native) and atypical (i.e. non-native) winter habitat species in 20km foraging areas around roosts surveyed by the National Flying Fox Monitoring Program. We find that neither the extent nor the spatial distribution of typical or atypical winter habitats explained black flying fox winter roost presence. Although the establishment of roosts was associated with high reliability for typical winter diet species, the reliability of the most frequently listed winter diet species surrounding surveyed roosts was not different between roosts that were occupied versus unoccupied in the winter. Significant interactions between lagged weather conditions and winter habitats identified by the best model did not reflect observable differences in patterns of occupancy upon scrutiny. Static measures of winter habitat and weather conditions poorly explained the winter roost occupancy of black flying foxes. Understanding the drivers of flying fox movement and presence requires further investigation before they can be thoughtfully integrated into Hendra spillover prevention efforts and flying fox management.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Measuring human behavior and ecological dimensions of pathogen transmission for outbreak control and prevention

  NIH · $1.9M · 2022–2028

Frequent coauthors

• Bryan T. Grenfell

  Princeton Public Schools

  55 shared

• Christina L. Faust

  University of Glasgow

  45 shared

• Ottar N. Bjørnstad

  Pennsylvania State University

  40 shared

• Matthew J. Ferrari

  Pennsylvania State University

  40 shared

• Brian Lambert

  London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

  29 shared

• Andrew J. Tatem

  University of Southampton

  29 shared

• Kelsee Baranowski

  Pennsylvania State University

  28 shared

• Julio Faria

  15 shared

Awards & honors

• Branco Weiss-Society in Science Fellow