Danielle deMontigny Avila, MD

Dr. Avila grew up in Missoula, Montana and spent most of her childhood playing outdoors and looking at insects under microscopes.  She attended Colorado State University on a track and field scholarship while studying for her biology degree and then her master’s degree in biomedical science.  She then moved to Mexico and attended medical school at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, where she both learned to speak Spanish and met her husband Giovanni, who is a psychiatrist.  She realized she still liked looking at bugs under microscopes, and after finishing internal medicine residency in Billings, Montana, decided to pursue a specialty in infectious diseases.  Dr. Avila completed her ID fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in June 2020. She then joined the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Arizona, Department of Medicine, as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, in September 2020.  Her scholarly activity has focused on treatment of infections in patients who inject drugs, and she is particularly interested in new approaches to infective endocarditis and working with vulnerable patient populations.