Nicholas Svitek is a scientist specialized in the field of immunovirology and vaccinology. He has been working at ILRI with the Vaccines Bioscience team (ILVAC) since 2014 and prior to that was a postdoctoral fellow in that same team since 2011. Nicholas holds a master’s degree (2004) in molecular virology and a PhD degree (2010) in virology and immunology from the University of Montreal and University of Quebec respectively. During his training and work experience, Nicholas gained extensive expertise in using reverse genetics technology to generate recombinant morbilliviruses and study their immunsupression mechanisms in ferrets, as well as using viral vectors to induce immunity towards the parasite Theileria parva, the causative agent of East Coast fever (ECF). He is currently overseeing cellular immunology projects within a BMGF-funded ECF research consortium and is involved in a project using the CRISPR-Cas technology for African swine fever virus genome engineering. He has (co)authored >15 peer-reviewed publications and 24 papers presented at international scientific conferences.