Аннотация:This paper examines the biography of an epidemiologist Irina Vladimirovna Tarasevich. Having graduated from Moscow University’s Department of Entomology, she devoted herself to the studies of natural-foci (vector-borne) diseases. Over her 65-year career at the N.F. Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, she went all the way from being a junior research fellow to Academician (Full Member) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She discovered new foci of Q fever, Tsutsugamushi disease, and Astrakhan spotted fever, studied the relationships of pathogens with their carriers, developed the diagnostics and forecasting techniques for the outbreaks of natural-foci infections, and identified a new species of Rickettsia. Apart from epidemiology, I.V. Tarasevich studied the history of discovery of different rickettsioses and founded a new school in ecology of Rickettsia and epidemiology of rickettsioses.