From climate change to land use, anthropogenic alterations to the environment are occurring at unprecedented rates and on an unthinkable scale. These developments alter the built landscape and our access to life-sustaining resources.

But they also disrupt the ecological relationships that bind together humans, mosquitoes, and parasites. Upsetting these relationships results in changes to the distribution of host organisms, rates of contact, the spread of infectious diseases, and the seasonality of transmission risk.

Disease ecologist Courtney Murdock will explore the climate variables that influence mosquito-borne disease transmission. Deploying advanced models of climate-based disease spread, Murdock’s research seeks to predict transmission patterns in order to respond to the epidemiological effects of the climate crisis. Register online.