Samuel Rund

Samuel Rund is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame, jointly appointed in the Center for Research Computing and the Department of Biological Sciences, and is a faculty affiliate of the Eck Institute for Global Health. His work bridges chronobiology, vector ecology, and data cyberinfrastructure, with a focus on mosquito vectors of human disease.

• Ph.D. in Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame
• Postdoctoral training in chronobiology and entomology

His research centers on circadian and seasonal rhythms in mosquitoes, particularly how light, temperature, and time-of-day influence biting behavior, physiology, and malaria transmission. He explores these rhythms at molecular, physiological, and ecological levels, with recent field studies in Ghana and across the U.S. His work has shown that artificial light at night increases biting in Aedes aegypti, and that temperature cycles modulate daily activity in Anopheles stephensi.

His recent publications reflect a strong emphasis on data integration and standardization in vector biology. He leads or contributes to major data initiatives such as VectorByte, VEuPathDB, and MIReAD, promoting FAIR data principles and open science. His work spans modeling vector abundance, biocuration, and global surveillance, with applications to malaria and arboviral disease control.

His scientific awards include the Newton International Fellowship from The Royal Society, UK. He is a co-PI on major grants from the NSF, USDA, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and NIH.

• Collaborative Research: CIBR: VectorByte (NSF)
• Mosquito Distributions and Seasonal Abundance (USDA)
• VectorAtlas (Gates Foundation)

He advises on the VectorAtlas project and serves on the advisory board of the UK One Health Vector-Borne Diseases Hub. He actively promotes training and data literacy through workshops and open-access platforms. He has no listed advisees in the provided text but collaborates widely across institutions including Virginia Tech, University of Florida, Oxford, and Imperial College London.

He maintains active research labs focused on mosquito chronobiology and data cyberinfrastructure, with ongoing field and computational projects in the U.S., Africa, and beyond. Future work includes expanding continental-scale mosquito surveillance and refining predictive models for vector abundance and disease risk.