peopleOttar Bjørnstad
Associate Professor of Entomology and Biology
Adjunct Professor in Statistics
Email: onb1@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2983
Fax: 814-865-9131
Office: 501 ASI Building
Research
I am involved in many collaborative studies on the outbreak and persistence of infectious disease.
My work has five interrelated themes:
- Ecological statistics: how can we test theories about spatiotemporal variation using abundance data?
- Population dynamics: how do the interactions between individuals and between individuals and the environment determine fluctuations in abundance? What are the effects of heterogeneity in the environment?
- Interactions between species: how do competition, predation and parasitism affect disease dynamics?
- Spatial dynamics: what causes regional synchrony or asynchrony in fluctuations?
- Ecology of infectious disease: how do host and pathogen characteristics affect incidence of disease?
I combine mathematical modelling with analysis of empirical data sets to generate and test hypotheses.
» For more details about my research, visit my lab website
CIDD-related teaching
BIOL 412: Ecology of infectious diseases
This course examines how ecological processes impact upon the epidemiology of infectious diseases.
ENT 420: Introduction to population dynamics
Principles of population regulation, demographic analysis, modeling of dynamic processes; laboratories explore population growth models.
» Find more details about or enroll in one of these courses