Dr. Drolet received a B.S. in microbiology and an M.S. in Pathobiology from the University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY. For her master’s degree she developed diagnostic assays to detect antibodies to bluetongue virus in domestic and wild ruminants. She received her Ph.D. in Genetics from Oregon State University where she characterized the route of infection, pathogenesis, and latency of a rhabdoviral infection in salmonids.

Following her graduate work, she was a post doctoral fellow at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles where she worked on herpes simplex virus infection and latency. From there she did a post doctoral appointment with the USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Arthropod-Borne Animal Diseases Research Unit (ABADRU) in Laramie Wyoming where she worked on virus-vector-host interactions of arboviral diseases in livestock and wildlife.

Dr. Drolet became a permanent research scientist with the USDA, ARS, ABADRU in 2001. Her research focuses on virus-vector-host interactions and arboviral disease pathogenesis for bluetongue, vesicular stomatitis, and Rift Valley fever viruses as well as developing immunodiagnostics for detection of these viruses in mammalian and insect hosts.

Dr. Drolet holds adjunct faculty appointments for the Department of Veterinary Science at the University of Wyoming, and the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University.