Wagner is the Associate Director of NAU\u2019s Pathogen and Microbiome Institute<\/a> (PMI) and currently serves as its Acting Executive Director. He has published more than 150 scholarly papers, won millions of dollars in grant funding, and gained recognition as one of the world\u2019s leading experts on several deadly pathogens. But his career path was something he never expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would never have thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now. It was really because of the mentors I had, the opportunities I was given, and the hard work I put in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up in rural Illinois, Wagner didn\u2019t think much about science. \u201cI hear those stories about scientists who had a chemistry set when they were young, or who were always looking at things\u2014but I was never really that kid,\u201d he says. \u201cI spent a lot of time outdoors. It wasn’t until high school that I had a brand-new teacher, right out of college, who was exciting and made physics interesting. So, I decided to be a high school teacher, too, teaching math and physics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A first-generation college student\u2014his father was an electrician and his mother a homemaker\u2014Wagner enrolled at Concordia University in Nebraska, where he pursued a BS in Secondary Education and a BA in Biology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn college, I was lucky enough to have a mentor who suggested I do undergraduate research, so I did wildlife research outdoors for three summers,\u201d he says. \u201cI just loved it, and I decided that\u2019s what I really enjoyed\u2014being out in the field. Physics wasn’t really for me. I was still working on my secondary ed degree, so I fulfilled my student teaching commitment. I learned a lot, but I didn\u2019t love it as much as I loved research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that time, if he\u2019d been asked about his career path, Wagner says, \u201cI thought I would be working for the Fish and Wildlife Service or the State Game and Fish Department.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After earning both bachelor\u2019s degrees, he spent some time as an AmeriCorps volunteer restoring wetlands. He applied to several graduate programs and ended up in the Zoology program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale studying wildlife biology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI liked the program a lot,\u201d Wagner says. \u201cI loved being outside, and I wanted to do that type of research. And then, in another stroke of luck, or maybe serendipity, I met a faculty member who was leaving SIU for a position as chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at NAU, so I ended up earning my PhD in Biological Sciences here, studying prairie dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s one of the big differences at NAU\u2014there are lots of opportunities to get involved in research.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs I was finishing up my doctorate in 2001, though, the prairie dogs I was studying started dying from the Black Death\u2014the same plague that killed millions of people in Europe in the Middle Ages. I recognized an opportunity to go further with my research. I approached Paul Keim<\/a>, at that time a Professor of Microbiology, who had developed a DNA fingerprinting system for diseases such as the plague, and we started collaborating. I would collect plague-infected fleas from the prairie dog die-offs, and his lab would perform the DNA fingerprinting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOf course, in the fall of 2001, that\u2019s when the anthrax letters were mailed,\u201d Wagner says. \u201cProfessor Keim\u2019s lab went nuts because they had the best DNA fingerprinting system in the world. Samples were coming from the CDC and the FBI to be fingerprinted and investigated to see whether they were part of the attacks. As Keim\u2019s lab took off, and the team needed to generate funding to continue its work, I started as a postdoc, writing papers and managing people. I\u2019d developed grant-writing skills along the way and had already been awarded $100,000 in grants as a PhD student, so I wrote a lot of proposals to fund my own work, as well as other research being performed in the lab, for the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wagner joined NAU as an Assistant Professor in 2005. From there, his career continued its vertical trajectory, and he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011 and Professor in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, he has expanded his research to include a wide range of pathogens and diseases, developing assays for diagnostic testing, leading important new studies, and collaborating with scientists all over the world. But the plague remains one of his favorite diseases. \u201cI still find plague fascinating because of its historical context,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among many other research interests, Wagner is currently involved in developing DNA capture and enrichment methodology, with the goal of getting all of a pathogen\u2019s DNA. \u201cUsing the teeth from a human skeleton with the Justinian plague\u2014from about 1,500 years ago\u2014we were able to capture just the pathogen\u2019s DNA and generate a full set of genomic data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nDiscovering an interest in research<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Anthrax attacks change career trajectory<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Professor](\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/179\/2022\/09\/david_wagner_img_8168_28924550103_o-1024x814.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMentoring a priority for Wagner<\/h3>\n\n\n\n