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Ottar Bjornstad
Study systems include
Measles
Whooping cough
Insect outbreaks
Selected publications
Lavine, J., King, A.A. and Bjornstad, O.N. 2011. Natural immune boosting in pertussis dynamics and the potential for long-term vaccine failure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 108: 7259-7264.
Metcalf, C. J. E., Munayco, C. V., Chowell, G., Grenfell, B. T., & Bjornstad, O. N. (2011). Rubella metapopulation dynamics and importance of spatial coupling to the risk of congential rubella syndrome in Peru. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 8(56), 369-376.
King, A.A., Shrestha, S., Harvill, E.T. and Bjørnstad, O.N. 2009 Evolution of acute infections and the invasion-persistence trade-off. American Naturalist 173:446-455.
Bjørnstad, O.N. and Grenfell, B.T. 2008. Hazards, spatial transmission and timing of outbreaks in epidemic metapopulations. Environmental and Ecological Statistics 15: 265-277.
Ferrari, M.J., Grais, R.F., Conlan, A.J.K., Bharti, N., Bjornstad, O.N., Wolfson, L.J., Guerin, P.J., Djibo, A. and Grenfell, B.T. 2008. Seasonality, stochasticity and the dynamics of measles in sub-Saharan Africa. Nature 451: 679-684.
Viboud, C., Bjørnstad, O.N., Smith, D.L., Simonsen, L., Miller, M.A. and Grenfell, B.T. 2006. Synchrony, waves and spatial hierarchies in the spread of influenza. Science 312: 447-451.
Professor of Entomology and Biology
Adjunct Professor in Statistics
Email: onb1@psu.edu
Phone: 814-863-2983
Office: 515 ASI Building
Research interests
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 about Ottar Bjornstad, see:
Courses:
- Introduction to Population Dynamics
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This course explore the area of 'population dynamics' which seeks to describe the patterns of fluctuation in abundance in space and time, and seeks to understand the processes that that underlies these fluctuations. The course illustrate conceptual/theoretical aspects and discuss important applied issues (relating to biocontrol, pest managment, population harvesting). The computer labs use computational frameworks to simulate, validate and parameterize ecological models. The aim of the course is two-fold: the lectures will be centered on concepts and theories, the labs will focus on implementation and hands-on exercises with data and models. We will work through a variety of examples using real and simulated data sets.
