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Ottar Bjornstad

Study systems include

Measles in humans, in developed and developing countries

Whooping cough

Phocine distemper virus (PDV) in harbor seals, in the North Sea, U.K.

Gypsymoth in eastern U.S. forests

Selected publications

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, Bjornstad ON, Smith DL, Simonson L, Miller MA & Grenfell BT (2006) Synchrony, waves and spatial hierarchies in the spread of influenza. Science 312: 447-451

Bjornstad ON & Harvill ET (2005). Evolution and emergence of Bordetella in humans. Trends in Microbiology 13: 355-359.

Bjørnstad, O.N., Finkenstädt, B. & Grenfell, B.T. 2002. Endemic and epidemic dynamics of measles. I. estimating transmission rates and their scaling using a time series SIR model. Ecological Monographs 72:169-184.

Bjørnstad, O.N. & Grenfell, B.T. 2001. Noisy clockwork: time series analysis of population fluctuations in animals. Science 293: 638-643.

Grenfell, B.T., Bjørnstad, O.N., & Kappey, J. 2001. Travelling waves and spatial hierarchies in measles epidemics. Nature 414: 716-723.

Ottar Bjornstad

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.

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