Tetyana Vasylyeva
Biography
Tetyana Vasylyeva, DPhil, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention and Co-Director of the PhD in Public Health Program at the Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health at the University of California, Irvine. She also holds an appointment without salary in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vasylyeva received her DPhil in Molecular Epidemiology from the University of Oxford, where she subsequently served as a Junior Research Fellow at New College and as a Branco Weiss Fellow. Her research focuses on the molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases, particularly HIV transmission dynamics in conflict-affected and displaced populations.
Vasylyeva has conducted extensive research on HIV transmission in Ukraine, examining how war, displacement, and social factors shape epidemic patterns. Her work combines phylodynamic analysis with social network approaches to understand disease transmission in vulnerable populations, including people who inject drugs and men who have sex with men. She has also contributed to genomic surveillance efforts for SARS-CoV-2, investigating variant introduction and transmission patterns in New York City and examining the role of socioeconomic disparities in variant success. Her research portfolio includes studies of hepatitis C virus, tuberculosis, and arboviral diseases such as dengue and Zika.
Vasylyeva serves as Principal Investigator on an NIH-NIDA R01 award examining social network disruption, stigma, and HIV transmission among forcibly displaced men who have sex with men in Ukraine, and as Site Principal Investigator on a Wellcome Trust grant studying dengue and Zika virus co-circulation dynamics. She is an elected member of the American Public Health Association's HIV Prevention and Treatment in Priority Populations Committee and serves on the standing committee for the International Dynamics and Evolution of Human Viruses Conference. Vasylyeva has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Science, PNAS, Cell, and Nature Communications.
Return to topEducation
- DPhil (PhD) in Molecular Epidemiology, University of Oxford, 2018
- MSc in Epidemiology, State University of New York at Albany, 2014
- Master of Management in Public Health, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2012
- Bachelor in Chemistry, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2010
Distinctions
- Matthews Junior Research Fellowship in Biological Sciences, New College, University of Oxford, 2018-2021
- Clarendon Fund Scholarship, University of Oxford, 2014-2018
- Branco Weiss Society in Science Fellowship, 2019-2024
- Fogarty NYS International Training and Research Program Fellowship, SUNY Albany, 2012-2013
- International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research Travel Fellowship, 2017
- International AIDS Society Travel Fellowship, 2012, 2014
- College of Health Sciences Faculty Assembly National and/or Global Health Impact Award, 2025
- Athalie Clarke Award for Public Health, 2025
Areas of Expertise
- Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases
- HIV Transmission Network Dynamics
- Phylodynamic Intervention Impact Assessment
- Viral Genomic Surveillance Methods
- Conflict-Driven Population Displacement Health
- SARS-CoV-2 Variant Succession Patterns
- Hepatitis C Virus Molecular Evolution
Recent Publications
- Kovalenko G., Liulchuk M.G., Filippovych M., Smyrnov P., Strathdee S.A., Vasylyeva T.I., “VANTAGE: van-based real-time HIV sequencing for transmission mapping and drug resistance profiling in war-affected Ukraine” (opens in new tab), AIDS, vol. 40, pp. 123-126, 2026.
- King N, Talebloo J, Smyrnov P, Vasylyeva TI, “Traumatic events exposure in men who have sex with men with and without experience of displacement in Ukraine” (opens in new tab), BMJ Global Health, vol. 10, no. 7, pp. e017953, 2025.
- Wertheim JO, Vasylyeva TI, Wood RJ, Cantrell K, Piña Contreras S, Feldheim A, Goyal R, Havens JL, Knight R, Laurent LC, Moshiri N, Neuhard R, Sathe S, Satterlund A, Scioscia A, Song AY, Schooley RT, Andersen CM, Martin NK, “Phylogeographic and genetic network assessment of COVID-19 mitigation protocols on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in university campus residences” (opens in new tab), eBioMedicine, vol. 116, pp. 105729, 2025.
- Trovato A, Aslanikashvili A, Kasrashvili T, Kovalenko G, Yakovleva A, Skaathun B, Gogia M, Vasylyeva TI, “HIV and Hepatitis C Virus in internally displaced people with and without injection drug use experience in the region of Gori, Georgia” (opens in new tab), BMC Research Notes, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 315, 2024.
- Vasylyeva TI, Havens JL, Wang JC, Luoma E, Hassler GW, Amin H, Di Lonardo S, Taki F, Omoregie E, Hughes S, Wertheim JO, “The role of socio-economic disparities in the relative success of SARS-CoV-2 variants in New York City” (opens in new tab), PLoS Pathogens, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. e1012288, 2024.
- Shao Y, Magee AF, Vasylyeva TI, Suchard MA, “Scalable gradients enable Hamiltonian Monte Carlo 3 sampling for phylodynamic inference under episodic birth-death-sampling models” (opens in new tab), Plos Computational Biology, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. e1011640, 2024.
- Antonenko P, Matsegora NA, Kaprosh AV, Vasylyeva T, Antonenko K, “The effect of immunoglobulin G on the humoral immunity in patients with tuberculosis/HIV co-infection” (opens in new tab), AIDS Research and Human retroviruses, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 246-252, 2024.
- Skaathun B, Strathdee S, Shrader CH, Nacht C, Borquez A, Artamonova I, Harvey-Vera A, Vera C, Rangel G, Ignacio C, Woodworth B, Chaillon A, Vasylyeva TI, “HIV-1 transmission dynamics among people who inject drugs on the US/Mexico Border during the COVID-19 pandemic: A prospective cohort study” (opens in new tab), The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, vol. 33, pp. 100751, 2024.
- Yakovleva A, Kovalenko G, Redlinger M, Smyrnov P, Tymets O, Korobchuk A, Kotlyk L, Kolodyazeva G, Podolina G, Chernyavskaya S, Strathdee SA, Friedman SR, Goodfellow I, Wertheim JO, Bortz E, Meredith L, Vasylyeva TI, “Hepatitis C Virus in people with experience of injection drug use following their displacement to Southern Ukraine before 2020” (opens in new tab), BMC Infectious Diseases, vol. 23, pp. 446, 2023.
- Kovalenko G, Yakovleva A, Smyrnov P, Redlinger M, Tymets O, Korobchuk A, Kolodiazieva A, Podolina A, Cherniavska S, Skaathun B, Smith LR, Strathdee SA, Wertheim JO, Friedman SR, Bortz E, Goodfellow I, Meredith L, Vasylyeva TI, “Phylodynamics and migration data help describe HIV transmission dynamics in internally displaced people who inject drugs in Ukraine” (opens in new tab), PNAS Nexus, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. pgad008, 2023.
- “Investigation of hospital discharge cases and SARS-CoV-2 introduction into Lothian care homes” (opens in new tab), Journal of Hospital Infection, vol. 135, pp. 28-36, 2023.
- Vasylyeva TI, Fang CE, Su M, Havens JL, Parker E, Wang JC, Zeller M, Yakovleva A, Hassler GW, Chowdhury MA, Andersen KG, Hughes S, Wertheim JO, “Introduction and Establishment of SARS-CoV-2 Gamma Variant in New York City in Early 2021” (opens in new tab), Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 226, no. 12, pp. 2142-2149, 2022.
- Smallman-Raynor MR, Cliff AD, COG-UK Consortium, “Spatial growth rate of emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages in England, September 2020–December 2021” (opens in new tab), Epidemiology and Infection, vol. 150, no. e145, pp. 1-13, 2022.
Most Cited Publications
- Vasylyeva TI, P Smyrnov, S Strathdee, SR Friedman, “Challenges posed by COVID-19 to people who inject drugs and lessons from other outbreaks” (opens in new tab), Journal of the International AIDS Society, vol. 23, no. e25583, 2020.
- Vasylyeva TI, Liulchuk M, Friedman SR, Sazonova I, Faria NR, Katzourakis A, “Molecular epidemiology reveals the role of war in the spread of HIV in Ukraine” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, no. 5, pp. 1051-1056, 2018.
- Vasylyeva TI, Friedman SR, Paraskevis D, Magiorkinis G, “Integrating molecular epidemiology and social network analysis to study infectious diseases: Towards a socio-molecular era for public health” (opens in new tab), Infection Genetics and Evolution, vol. 46, pp. 248-255, 2016.
- Magee AF, Höhna S, Vasylyeva TI, Leaché AD, Minin VN, “Locally adaptive Bayesian birth-death model successfully detects slow and rapid rate shifts” (opens in new tab), Plos Computational Biology, vol. 16, 2020.
- Yakovleva A, Kovalenko G, Redlinger M, Liulchuk MG, Bortz E, Zadorozhna VI, Scherbinska AM, Wertheim JO, Goodfellow I, Meredith L, Vasylyeva TI, “Tracking SARS-COV-2 Variants Using Nanopore Sequencing in Ukraine in Summer 2021” (opens in new tab), Scientific Reports, vol. 12, pp. 15749, 2022.
- Vasylyeva TI, Horyniak D, Bojorquez I, Pham MD, “Left behind on the path to 90-90-90: Understanding and responding to HIV among displaced people” (opens in new tab), Journal of the International AIDS Society, vol. 25, no. 11, pp. e26031, 2022.
- Mokaya J, Vasylyeva TI, Barnes E, Ansari MA, Pybus OG, Matthews PC, “Global prevalence and phylogeny of hepatitis B virus (HBV) drug and vaccine resistance mutations” (opens in new tab), Journal of Viral Hepatitis, vol. 28, pp. 1110–1120, 2021.
- Friedman SR, Smyrnov P, Vasylyeva TI, “Will the Russian War in Ukraine unleash larger epidemics of HIV, TB and associated conditions and diseases in Ukraine?” (opens in new tab), Harm Reduction Journal, vol. 20, pp. 119, 2023.
- Vasylyeva TI, du Plessis L, Pineda-Peña AC, Kühnert D, Lemey P, Vandamme AM, “Tracing the Impact of Public Health Interventions on HIV-1 Transmission in Portugal Using Molecular Epidemiology” (opens in new tab), Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 220, no. 2, pp. 233-243, 2019.
- Bradshaw D., Vasylyeva T.I., Davis C., Pybus O.G., Theze J., Thomson E.C., Martinello M., Matthews G.V., Burholt R., Gilleece Y., Cooke G.S., Page E.E., Waters L., Nelson M., “Transmission of hepatitis C virus in HIV-positive and PrEP-using MSM in England” (opens in new tab), Journal of Viral Hepatitis, vol. 27, pp. 721-730, 2020.
Contact Information
Email: t.vasylyeva@uci.edu
Address: 3513 Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences
Return to topThis profile was created with the help of AI.
Last updated on 5/14/2026.