Ottar N. Bjørnstad

Ottar N. Bjørnstad is a Distinguished Professor of Entomology and Biology at Pennsylvania State University, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Statistics. His research focuses on theoretical ecology, population dynamics, and statistical ecology, particularly in infectious disease dynamics and spatiotemporal data analysis.

Education: Ph.D. in Ecology (University of Oslo, 1997), M.S. in Zoology (1993), B.A. in Biology (1991). Postdoctoral training at University of California, Santa Barbara (1998–2000) and Norwegian Science Foundation (1997–1998).

Research Interests: Mathematical and computational approaches to population ecology, statistical ecology, and disease transmission modeling. He explores topics such as age-structured host populations, spatial synchrony in pest outbreaks, and vaccination strategies for pandemic control.

His recent work emphasizes pandemic preparedness, including vaccine accessibility, SARS-CoV-2 serology, and Ebola outbreak management. He collaborates across disciplines, integrating field data with computational models to address global health challenges.

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams in epidemiology, statistics, and environmental science. Leads projects on disease dynamics, ecological modeling, and data-driven public health interventions.